The Splintered Tomorrow
by thenyxie
Summary: Pt. 3 of “The Splintered Tomorrow Arc”, WIP. Rogue and Magneto find there is more to saving the world than fighting. Old loves return, betrayals and treachery abound, while the twins's powers grow out of control. (shades of M-R and echoes of R-R)
1. Prologue

**THE SPLINTERED TOMORROW**   
Part Three of "The Splintered Tomorrow Arc"  
  
Summary: It has been fourteen years since the apocalypse and the world has begun to rebuild itself. Almost seven years after the death of Remy and the defeat of Sinister, Rogue and Magneto find themselves fighting a new battle for the survival of mutant and humankind alike in the world of human politics. But on the cusp of repairing mutant/human relations, the Master of Magnetism's health begins to fail and an evil plot is unfurled that threatens to claim not only his future, but the future of the entire team. Faces from the X-Men's past return to haunt them, threatening to tear them apart with suspicion and betrayal, and torn and assaulted from within, they find themselves attacked from without by a new alliance built on destroying the X-Men any way they can. In the midst of all this turmoil, Jean-Luc and Irinee' have come of age and struggle to control their growing power, only to learn that the threat they pose to the world may be the most dangerous yet. (shades of Magneto/Rogue, echoes of Rogue/Gambit)  
  
Continuity: This story takes place almost seven years after The Resurrection Gauntlet ends.  
  
Status: Work in progress.  
  
Author Notes: This is the final part of what was always meant to be a trilogy. If you haven't read the first two parts of the story (Death of a Dream and The Resurrection Gauntlet), I highly recommend that you read them. Go ahead, I'll wait :) If you are familiar with my previous works, you will notice that my writing style has matured greatly in the last few years. The feel of this story is the same, but the flavor a bit different. I hope you all enjoy it just as much.  
  
Disclaimer: All characters featured in this story belong to Marvel Comics and are used without permission, except the ones that belong to me. I'm sure Marvel knows the difference :)  
_____________________________________________________________________________  
  
  
_A whispering cat in a burgandy hat,  
told her of a race that would die  
But she told him instead she's in love with the dead,  
she's a necromancing slave from the sky.  
  
Crying rhymes for these dying times  
If it's time to die there's nothing you can do.  
It's coming after you.  
  
            ~It's Coming After, Second Coming__  
_  
  
PROLOGUE  
  
Roma stood atop the mountain and stared down at the sprawling remains of human civilization. In the east, the sun was rising, plunging the scarred landscape below into deep shades of red and gold. Houses glittered in half-light, piles of litter and debris still lost to shadow, and it was possible to see the shape of the old world, to see the sleepy little town that had once nestled against the base of the mountain in solitude and peace. A simple thing to imagine people curled comfortably in their beds, lost in dreams and flights of fancy.  
  
Chill wind rose, tossing long, dark hair about her form, and she ignored it, deep brown eyes so dark they were almost black as she watched. Watching… it was her stock in trade in current days. She had watched as the world had been turned into a battlefield, mutant against mutant, soldiers trooping across the land in a myriad of color, urged on by the Shadow King. She had witnessed with heavy heart a humanity that had been driven to near extinction by their tide. She was changeless, timeless, a Goddess; the world was not. She knew that to be true, and yet the plight of the world tugged at her as it always had, twisting in her breast like frail, weak humanity.   
  
But she was not human. And despite it all, she had merely stood and looked on, a statue whose countenance was not touched by the grief that cracked her heart. She had interfered too many times already. The chessboard on which the Gods once played was now a wasteland, and its pawns had turned against them. No more.  
  
And still… among the rubble of the broken world, a new light shone like the glimmer of a crystalline chess piece. But not King, nor Queen, nor Knight or Pawn. No. This player was a piece inadvertently born of the machinations of others in the game, forged by the shape of this new world in the fires of its need. Whatever its moves, whatever its purpose and final victory, it would not serve the will of the Gods. It would serve the will of nothing but itself, and its ending would come with the absolute destruction of Earth 616, or its salvation.  
  
Either way, this world's time had come.  
  
The sun rose, and the Guardian of the Multi-verse watched on.  
  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
And while the Goddess watched, perhaps lax in her duties, others stepped up to take the reins.  
  
"Are we ready, Renaldo?" Veronica Hayes asked as she strode into the lab.  
  
"Yes, Dr. Hayes." Renaldo adjusted his glasses, cleared his throat as he looked down at his computer screen. "Temporal technology has been successfully merged with the machine and all systems are functioning within normal parameters. Exact time and coordinates have been pinpointed and programmed into the database down to the picosecond of the recorded time of the rift."   
  
Dr. Hayes made a note on her digital clipboard and nodded. "And the information about the mission?"  
  
"Has been loaded into the main and back-up clusters, including images, history, battle strategies, weaknesses and strengths, and known locations."  
  
She lifted her eyes to him, and beneath the excitement reflected in her cool, blue irises lurked a ghost of trepidation she scarcely knew existed. "We're ready then?" she asked, her voice just touch breathless.  
  
"Right on schedule, Doctor," Renaldo replied with a smile.  
  
She stood there a moment, taking that in, then nodded. She turned slowly toward the bulk of machinery behind her, eyes falling on it with a wistful, almost worshipful gaze. A robot stood in the center of the machine, constructed of smooth curves and severe, sharp edges, every inch of it made of high-polished silver that gleamed with no warmth; a monolith with eyes that were still dark like the color of blood, inert and lifeless. A tapestry of convoluted wires spread from its massive height, each intricate in its singular duty, and all around and in between, clear tubes pumped with curious colored liquids. Circuits hummed in quiet unison as they performed their task and seemed to sing in odd, harmonic tandem beneath the cold fluorescent light of the lab.  
  
It was ready. It was all ready.  
  
"Bring it online."  
  
The flick of a switch between Renaldo's eager fingers and the circuits hummed louder, seeming to cry out with a life of their own. Within the mass of wires and metal, something stirred, fed by aqua and sunlight colored liquid that pulsed in furious synchronicity with the rumble of the machine. The rhythm of sound sped up as it sought to find its apex, and went faster still as crimson liquid poured from the array of cylinders that compressed and pumped in time. The orchestra of metal and plastic reached a tempestuous crescendo, and the machine screeched in a cacophony of steel and smoldering circuits as it protested against the demands being made upon it. The Doctor frowned, concerned, and then smiled, her brow smoothing as the rhythm slowed and steadied.  
  
_Thumpthump_. Like the beat of a heart.  
  
_Thumpthump_, the sound of music in her ears.  
  
"_Nimrod II is now online_," intoned the cold, disembodied voice of the computer system.  
  
Dr. Hayes felt chills spill up and down her spine. This was it. This was her moment.  
  
"Send it back, Renaldo," she said, and her voice was a near-whisper. "Let's make history."  
  
"Initiating Project 'Retroactive Strike'," Renaldo said, fingers flying over his keyboard.  
  
"_Disengaging manual support_," the computer reported. The tubes drained of their liquid and came free with a hissing pop.   
  
"_Project 'Retroactive Strike' has been initiated_," the computer replied. "_Deploying in three…_"  
  
Renaldo breathed deep and looked up, his eyes wide as they focused on Nimrod II.  
  
"_Two…_"  
  
Dr. Hayes clutched her clipboard so hard that her fingers bruised.  
  
_"One…"  
_  
"Come on," she whispered.  
  
There was a brief flash of light, and then the sound of air popping as it rushed to fill the vacuum left behind by the robot.  
  
"It worked!" Renaldo exclaimed, professional protocol forgotten for a moment as child-like joy overtook him.  
  
Dr. Hayes said nothing, her eyes still wide and riveted on the empty space where Nimrod II had stood just seconds before. The machinery still hummed, and circuits and wires still weaved an intricate pattern throughout the launch pad, but the tubes dangled from the machinery like desiccated snakes, the object of their embrace gone.   
  
Gone, she thought, and almost couldn't believe it. It had worked. They had done it.   
  
She turned, the words of congratulations for her colleague on the tip of her tongue—  
  
Light flashed, and backlit, her shadow loomed across the wall behind Renaldo like a scene out of a horror movie. Before she could turn, before she could speak, there came the sound of air ripping itself apart as something solid materialized within the construct.  
  
"Oh," she said, hand coming up to cover her mouth. The word seemed to hang there, awkward and lingering and faintly stupid to her ears as it dissolved in the hum of machinery.  
  
"No. No, no, no, no, no…" Renaldo was saying behind her, and his voice reached her dazed mind as if from a great distance away. "This is all wrong! This shouldn't even be possible! I calculated down to the picosecond."  
  
Strung amongst the wires and empty tubes was a human body, its arms and legs splayed at odd angles that tangled in the circuitry and stuck there. The landscape of its flesh was seared and blackened, and in places it gleamed an unnatural pink where the skin had been scoured away all together, exposing the muscle beneath. The damage was so extreme, the ravages of feature so complete that gender or identity would be pointless questions. The smell of burned flesh pervaded the Doctor's nostrils and she gave a shudder of revulsion, feeling her breakfast rise in the back of her throat.  
  
It was staring at her.  
  
She opened her mouth to tell Renaldo to get it out of there, not even caring what it might mean to the project. At that moment, all she wanted was—  
  
It blinked.  
  
She pressed her fingers tight against her face. "Oh my God."  
  
But she knew as well as anyone that God had left this building a long, long time ago.  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 1: Days of Future Past

_How it feels to be dry  
Walking bare in the sun  
Every mirage I see is a mirage of you  
As I cool in the twilight  
Taste the salt on my skin  
I recall all the tears  
All the broken words  
  
I am paralysed by the Blood of Christ  
Though it clouds my eyes  
I can never stop  
  
~The Blood, The Cure  
_  
  
CHAPTER 1: DAYS OF FUTURE PRESENT  
  
She woke in the middle of the night, soaked in the sweat of bad dreams, and reached for him. Six years, almost seven, and she still woke up reaching for him, hands falling upon that cool, empty length of bed sheets with clutching need. Tangled in bed clothes, wild-eyed and scarcely awake, she was still always surprised to find him gone. No warmth to cradle against, no broad chest to press her head against to listen to the sound of breathing; only cold, empty sheets and a desperate, whispered plea from her own mouth.   
  
Memory returned with the feel of un-warmed linen, unbidden and hated. She pushed it away and rolled over, filling the empty space with her own warmth, eyes squeezed shut as she breathed deep. She could stave off reality for a few moments more. Could pretend he had gotten up to go to the bathroom and would be returning to her side at any moment. Seconds passed with only the sound of her own breathing, stretching into minutes, and at last her charade crumbled, sorrow falling over her like an old, well-worn garment. She wept in the pre-dawn darkness alone, her head on the pillow that had long ago been washed of his scent, fingers digging deep into feather and seeking comfort that would never be found there.  
  
Letting go. Magnus said that was the hardest part. But Rogue had found a different truth, one that was even harder to bear.   
  
There were some wounds that never healed.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Morning broke as Magnus lay in his bed, the display that ran the length of one wall simulating threaded rays of sunlight that weaved through the room. Blue-gray eyes studied a contoured ceiling that nearly matched them in color, steel rivets holding no more wisdom for him today than they had yesterday. Another day, another battle ahead.  
  
The sheets slithered away from him as he rose, and he stared at them without interest, seeing nothing beyond shape and shadow as his mind lingered in older places. He missed the days of old, and the irony was not lost on him. He had always been a man of action, of fire and passion, and though there were still battles left to fight in this flailing world, with every passing day he found himself less willing to contend with them.  
  
Oh, there were fights, certainly. The struggling, scattered masses of mutants and malformed that still rallied against the new world order. But they were meaningless, hardly worth the effort. He couldn't remember the last time he'd broken a sweat when dealing with them.  
  
His gaze went to his helmet that rested on the shelf where he had left it so long ago. Red and purple metal still gleamed beneath the dust that had collected on its surface. It was still bright and sharp, waiting to be picked up and put on at any moment. Ready to be used, eager for action, its purpose was eternal. And he… he was ragged and tattered at the edges, a faded reflection of his former self, his purpose become something he could no longer understand. These days he went to battle armed only with his mind and his meager words. And while some might have thought them daunting, even formidable, he felt weak--naked without the protection of his trusted metal carapace.  
  
He understood armor, understood force, and in return, he had always felt it understood him. In all his long life, it had been the only turgid romance he had ever known, the only commitment he had ever kept. They shared a kinship, a bond beyond that of normal mortal or mutant. And though Charles Xavier had cited in him the heart of a diplomat and leader long ago, he still felt drawn to his nature, ill-suited to the role of leader and peacemaker. It was a skin, an identity that never quite fit, though he had clung to it the best that he could after he had returned from the Shadow King's embrace. What else had been left to him? World domination? A world where mutants ruled over the rubble and ashes of the billions dead? Charles had abashed him of that line of thinking long ago, though it had taken years for him to come to terms with it.  
  
One corner of his mouth twisted in a roguish smile. You could take the man out of the war, but not the war out of the man. His palms still itched to feel the power of magnetism flow beneath them; his heart still sped up with the promise of battle. All these years as a leader, all the lessons learned… how far he had come. And yet he still longed, more than anything, for something he could simply hit.  
  
He paused a moment, perched at the edge of the bed--waiting, hoping as he always did, for some simple menace to present itself and prevent him from his daily duty. He was a stubborn man, and hope was the one thing that had never evaded him, though it had worked differently for him than the man he had once admired. Patience though, that had ever been his weakness, as it was now, and after a few moments, he roused himself and rose from the bed, steeled, if not quite prepared for the coming day.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
"Rogue?" Magnus knocked on her door with a gentle hand. She might already be awake. She usually was, but if she wasn't he didn't want to wake her. She never slept well even in the best of times, and these were certainly not those.  
  
The door slid open and tired emerald green eyes greeted him with the tiniest of smiles.  
  
"Magnus," she said, mouth trying to form the same smile reflected in her eyes. But her lips only trembled, finding the forgotten shape for a split second before they settled back into a pale, pink line. He tried not to notice the puffy skin around her eyes, to ignore the thin red lines that limned them. She wouldn't want him to notice, wouldn't want him to worry, and so he said nothing.  
  
"I… ah," he paused and smiled with a touch of awkwardness--a site that few on the face of the Earth had witnessed--then shrugged his shoulders. "It appears I need a bit of help."  
  
And now she did smile, though the curve of it was tired and worn. "Those ties kickin' your butt again?"  
  
He held up his hands in defeat, a long, deep crimson tie trailing between the fingers of one hand, navy blue clutched in the other. "Thirty some odd years spent fighting the dominating forces of the Earth, and now these are the hardest decisions I have to make." He shook his head, rueful.  
  
"Ain't that a crock?" she asked as she stepped out into the hallway. That ghostly smile floated over her face again, and she paused for a moment as she considered. Then she reached out, pulled the navy tie from his grasp, and looped it around his head. Pulling it taut around his neck, she measured the ends, then looped it again and pulled it through.  
  
Magnus stood perfectly still, watching her face as she worked, all too conscious of her fingers against his body. Even blunted as her touch was through the cotton of the button-up shirt he wore, they left lingering trails of warmth in their wake that made his skin tingle and his mind drift.  
  
She pulled the knot tight and smoothed his collar. "There," she said, hands still on him as she admired her handiwork. "All…" she trailed off, staring, and her brows knotted together like the stem of a thorny rose.  
  
He glanced down and realized that she wasn't wearing her gloves. Black heralds wrought of silk and wreathed in mourning that never left her hands in the presence of others. She didn't need them anymore but she wore them anyway, like a scarlet letter for everyone to see. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen her without them.  
  
He looked back up and realized she was staring at him.  
  
"Ah'm all right, Magnus," she said, voice soft but still somehow hard, threaded with the steel of years that hid secrets in their hardened grasp. And yet they were filled with a kind of quiet desperation that made him wonder if the words were really for him, or to convince herself.  
  
_Ah'm all right_. The mantra that she had recited throughout the years as if she said it often enough, she might actually believe it one day. But she was far from all right, hadn't been _near_ "all right" since Remy's death, and they both knew it. Her grief was still as palpable and real as her beauty, but in all the years it had existed, they had rarely spoken of it.  
  
"Rogue… if you need anything," he began.  
  
"I know," she said. And instead of removing her hands, she laid them against his chest, palms flat and fingers fanned wide as she quieted him.  
  
She looked at him with those deep green eyes, their depths mysterious and incomprehensible as ever for a moment, and then she smiled; that terrible, wan, pale smile that reeked of sadness and regret. He knew that smile, though he had seen it on her face only a handful of times in the passing years, and it was all the more terrible because she conjured it for him. Only for him.  
  
He knew it, and he knew what it meant, though if pressed he could never have explained the complexity of intense emotion that accompanied it.  
  
He raised his hand, crimson tie still twined between his fingers, and laid it over hers, skin to skin.  
  
She didn't move, didn't speak, just let the moment be, eyes staring up into his like twin fires in the space between them. And then the stillness passed, and she drew her hands away, running them over her own bed-rumpled clothing in a self-conscious gesture. Unsuccessful in their attempt to smooth away the wrinkles, her fingers fluttered like tiny birds, as if she didn't quite know what to do with them. She looked down at them, then back up at him.  
  
"Ah… should get ready," she said. The words were almost an apology, and he wondered at them, questions leaping to his tongue and holding there, not quite dared. She hesitated—one heartbeat, two--then took a step backward, into her room.  
  
Her eyes were veiled again as he nodded, and the door slid shut between them with a soft sound that seemed very loud in the quiet of the hall.  
  
He stood there for a long time, staring down at the tie that drifted in his hand like lost hope. He could still feel the warmth on his skin where she had touched him, and in the echoes of his mind, he could still see that sad, pained smile she had gifted him with. In that poignant, solitary moment, he was able to put a name to it at last.  
  
It was the line between what was and what could never be.  
  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Bobby plucked another hors-d'oeuvre from the tray, grinned and slung one arm around Lorna.  
  
"You know, if I'd known the food at these things was so good, I'd have been coming to these boring meetings for years."  
  
"Pig," Lorna grinned back and shoved an elbow into his ribs.  
  
"Hey, watch it there, strong arm," he said, removing her metal arm from between two ribs. "Wouldn't want me to have to bust out the ice and go medieval on you." When she only arched one pale green brow at him, he cleared his throat and backtracked with haste. "I mean, uh, you wouldn't want to hurt the merchandise you're so fond of, now would you?" He tried a disarming grin.  
  
"Men," Madelyne demurred, and though the word was soft, it was somehow filled with the sibilants of a hiss. She shook her long red hair, and Bobby thought her presence was only slightly diminished by the simple clothing she wore. Clothed in a white blouse and navy pants, she was still as striking as she had ever been, a serpent coiled in the trappings of humans. He would have mocked her for the lack of black leather she seemed to prefer, but he himself was shed of spandex or jeans, clad in khaki pants and striped Oxford that would have made Old Navy proud. They looked for all the world like normal people, and despite himself, he couldn't help but wonder if they were simply repeating the pattern all over again. Lie upon lie. _Hey, look at me, I'm a regular Joe just like you guys… except that I could go nuclear at any moment and plunge the world into another Ice Age. Nope, nothing to see here, move along._  
  
He hated it, but Bobby Drake had never been one for deep thinking, or aspiring to the lofty goals of heading world peace. He wasn't much for taking orders, but he wasn't so hot on giving them, either. Sometimes he thought it was a wonder he'd ever ended up fighting for the forces of good at all. Then again, it wasn't so much the side of good these days as it was shades of gray.  
  
Maybe it was that Madelyne seemed softened by her normal clothes. Maybe it was the thick air of tension that hung over them like a pall in the wake of proceedings beyond their ability to affect. Maybe it was a random mood. But something prompted him to let go of his hasty tongue as he replied, "Gee. Couldn't guess why you don't have one."  
  
Cat-like green eyes turned on him, and despite the complacence her appearance had lulled him into, he felt a chill deep at the base of his spine that had nothing to do with his mutant powers.  
  
"Here comes Rogue," Lorna said, inadvertently—or perhaps with purpose—interrupting the showdown.  
  
Bobby glanced at her, the need for the announcement not understood, and she shoved her elbow into his ribs again. With a reflexive swallow he gulped the rest of his hors-d'oeuvre and stood straight. If he lived forever he thought he might never get used to the accord afforded to his skunk-striped teammate.  
  
"Senator LeBeau," one of the Counselors greeted, standing straight at attention, head inclined just slightly in deference to the woman before him.  
  
And then, Bobby saw her; tall woman striding with purpose down the corridor, white streak flaring proudly through her hair, cloak sweeping around her form and lending it a majesty he'd never noticed before. In her wake trailed two children, thin and waiflike in their adolescence though they lacked the coltish legs of true teenagers as yet. Emerald eyes like their mother's, hair white as the shock that ran through her own hair, and skin tinted with the faintest olive color of their father. So pale, so ethereal, they could have almost been overlooked but for the qualities that made them so.  
  
Rogue bowed as deep as protocol dictated, and then she entered the conference room, children trailing dutifully behind.  
  
"Well. Let's get this show on the road—quick, before anyone has any fun," Bobby muttered.  
  
He wondered, not idly, if they sold popcorn at these sorts of things.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Senator Alba raised his left hand to quiet the masses, his elderly face solemn as he spoke into the resounding silence.  
  
"Ladies and gentlemen of my fellow country, I welcome you. In times past, I might have made grand speeches and presented poignant catechisms in the supposed name of granting this day greater resonance. But in our present day, there is no time, nor place for such pomp and circumstance. There is no time for media or three ringed circuses. There is no time for political hoops to be jumped through. In this time, there is only need, and that need must be answered." He paused and surveyed the audience with dark, penetrating eyes.  
  
"When the darkness fell fourteen years ago, we were but few; we human survivors isolated and scattered to the far corners of the earth. In the years that followed, we grew stronger, we came together and we were bound by the dream of reclaiming this country that we built and returning it to its former glory. For fourteen years, we have suffered in the shadow of loss. For five years, we have gathered here, discussing plans for a greater nation and a stronger stance for the continuation of humanity. None can deny the steps that we have made, the order and cities we have rebuilt. But neither can we deny that this nation is no longer ours alone. In the same manner this country has shared its soil with the blood of other nationalities we now must recognize that there is another nationality among us, for good or ill. Today we gather to discuss our future, and what place they may have in it, if at all."  
  
Alba sat back in his seat and shuffled through the papers before him, letting the tension build in uncertain silence. "In the last five years, Senator Sabine LeBeau, as recognized by the Council for Mutant-kind, has done much to further human/mutant relations. It is at her urging that we gather here today, and for the first time meet with those who helped bring our darkest hour upon us." Dark eyes flecked with steel and fire rose to meet the eyes of those seated across from the Councils half-circle. Alba lifted his right hand in a solemn, commencing gesture.  
  
"The Council of Humanity recognizes Senator Erik Magnus Lensherr, head of the Council for Mutant-kind."  
  
Magnus felt his stomach twist in disgust at the perfunctory tone of the Senator's words, and wondered for the millionth time why he had let Rogue talk him into this. He glanced to his left side, greeted by deep green eyes that were the picture of calm; cool, jungle leaves, dripping rain and nonchalance. He knew this was folly. They could only end as they had begun years before the Shadow King had escaped his psychic prison. But one look in those eyes and he knew he could not refuse. Not her. Never her.  
  
Gathered in two tight semi-circles behind tables of polished wood, the humans and mutants faced each other. Rogue at Magnus' left, Wanda at his right, three mutants on his daughter's side and two on Rogue's for an odd number of seven. Their formation was mirrored on the human's side. He looked to Lasher, to Piotr and Ororo on his right, then to Theresa and Eugene on his left. Drawing strength from their faces, he rose from his seat.  
  
"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Council," Magnus began, his deep voice resonating throughout the chamber. He paused, as if gathering his thoughts, and the hint of smirk creased his well-worn features. "I come before you today with a proposition. For years we have toiled separately to rid this world of evil, to right the wrongs and rebuild the world as we knew and loved it. We too have suffered losses. We too have mourned. In our own time, in the manner only those of Mutant-kind could, we have fought the same evil, and turned it on its heel."  
  
"Evil _you_ brought upon us," called a voice from the civilian crowd, and several others were spurred by this pronouncement, their voices rising in noisy assent.   
  
"Order," called Alba, reproving as he slapped his gavel down upon the polished wood.  
  
But the murmurs were picking up momentum, and the woman who'd spoken would not be so easily quieted.  
  
"I lost my sons to this war," she called out, voice ringing with tragic validation. "And you were the one who carried the evil that killed them!"  
  
"Order!" Alba cried, half-rising from his seat. But the crowd was already beyond his control. They were caught up in the seeming opportunity for retribution, and hundreds of bodies shuffled together with ill-intent, feeding off the dissonance of one voice, and their own voices rose and merged together. The sound was sharp, like the point of a sword, and no less a weapon as it wound higher and higher.  
  
Storm clouds gathered on Magnus' brow, and his face curled with derision, mouth compressing to a thin, firm line. He had barely begun, and already he was being assaulted. And still, he couldn't really blame them. He understood now what he hadn't so many years ago. To these people, he was nothing better than the Nazi's that had exterminated his own race.   
  
The knowledge did nothing to ease the acrid taste of bitterness in his mouth.  
  
His fingers flexed, and he had a moment to think that perhaps he might get the fight he'd been looking for after all—and then the crowd parted, startled into silence as a lone man made his way up to where the objector stood.  
  
Everyone stilled, unnerved by the self-possession, the utter ease with which this man sauntered into the madness of their building mob.  
  
"I'm sorry for yer loss, darlin'," the man said, voice rumbling through the acoustics of the chamber. "I lost a daughter, myself."  
  
The woman stared at him, her face a poem of rage and loss that trembled on the verge of breaking temper. "Who are you?" she demanded, face flushed with anger. "I know everyone in this town and I don't know you."  
  
"Call me a concerned citizen."  
  
She blanched, almost recoiled from the words. "You're not a citizen," she accused. "You're one of _them_."  
  
Logan turned his head to the side as if disinterested, and popped a single claw from between his right knuckles. "Then call me security," he said, voice cool and unaffected by the gasps of the crowd around him. "Still and all, I think it'd be best to let the man have his say, bein' as that's why we're all here. Don't you?" he inquired politely, still not looking at her as his adamantium claw scratched the stubble along his jaw, as casual as if they'd been talking about the weather.  
  
The woman bit down on her tongue even as Magnus curled his against his teeth in sardonic amusement. New world, same old tricks.  
  
"As you were sayin'."   
  
Logan motioned to him with such a display of magnanimousness that even the Master of Magnetism was hard pressed not to chuckle. He slid his tongue back into its proper place and seized the moment before it could gallop away.  
  
"As I said, we too have suffered losses. They are no less for the differences in our genes. My friend Logan and the lady in the audience have just demonstrated quite clearly the tensions that have existed between mutants and humans, up until now. Perhaps in our old world, these things had a place. But in this new one, we can scarce afford to discount one another, or make enemies of one another, when it is clear that our goals are the same."  
  
"Senator Alba," Magnus said, and turned toward the man. "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Council, and fellow citizens, we come before you today to propose an alliance; a joining of man and mutant-kind, the likes of which has only been dreamed. We would become a Joined Council for the betterment of all--" Magnus broke off, and his face turned pale with shocking suddenness. One hand rose as if to touch his chest, and the other reached down to steady himself against the solid wood of the table. He cleared his throat before the looks of surprise could turn to concern, and forced himself onward.  
  
"For the betterment--" His throat locked, and he choked on the last syllable, the damnable words of politicians lodging in his mouth and sticking there. _I always knew they would be the death of me_, he thought with an odd kind of distance. The distance increased with the passing of seconds, and as though a veil had fallen between him and his body, he viewed the pain that spasmed down his left arm and up into his throat with a detachment that would have made a Zen Buddhist proud.  
  
He was vaguely aware of motion all around him--of bodies rising and pressing toward him with able arms and helpful hands--and then he was falling down a long, deep, dark hole into the abyss.  
  
The last thing he saw was a pair of shocked green eyes that stared down at him from miles above, the one emotion he had so rarely seen now reflected within them.   
  
He locked on to that love, and carried it with him into blackness.  
  
After all; it was the only thing in his life worth taking.  
  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
"Dr. Hayes?" The voice over the intercom was male, deep, and had only a slight bit more inflection than the voice that spoke for their computer system.  
  
Veronica steeled herself, took a deep breath and pressed the button. "Yes sir?"  
  
"What is the status of the target?"  
  
"Just a moment, sir." She let go of the button, turned to Renaldo and exhaled in a shaky rush. "Do another scan."  
  
_"Scanning for target…"  
  
_Long seconds ticked by in the quiet hum of the lab, and Dr. Hayes offered a prayer to the God she hadn't considered in years.  
_  
"…biorhythm found."  
  
_The weight of the information caused her physical pain, and she closed her eyes against it. But she pushed the intercom button and spoke in a brisk voice, in a hurry to be rid of the news. "Target still exists, sir."  
  
"So he's still alive."  
  
"Yes sir. It would appear that Nimrod II has failed its mission."  
  
"Forgive me," Renaldo spoke up and looked to Veronica, as if speaking to her might somehow lessen his breach of protocol. "But that's impossible Dr. Hayes. The amount of damage it would take to destroy a creation like Nimrod II is unthinkable. And utter destruction is the only thing that would have stopped it."  
  
Veronica stared at him, wordless as she let go of the button, surprised into silence by his nerve. She didn't dare reply. No, she'd let _him_ do that.  
  
The intercom speaker rustled with faint static as the voice spoke again. "Nevertheless, our target still lives, Renaldo. We must assume the mission was a failure."  
  
Renaldo fell silent, looked down at his control board.  
  
"And the other?" the voice inquired after a moment.  
  
"Still alive," she reported.  
  
"Do we know what happened?" Was there cool mockery in that voice? She thought there was.  
  
"We're still researching sir, but we believe that for some reason as yet unknown, we experienced a matter transference."  
  
A slight pause, and then, "Have you confirmed identity yet?"  
  
"Yes sir." She hesitated, opened her mouth and closed it again, some part of her still unwilling to believe what they had discovered.   
  
"Well? Don't keep me in suspense, Doctor."  
  
She told him.  
  
There was a long, contemplative silence on the other end that seemed to crackle with electricity, and then he spoke with more emotion than she'd ever heard in his voice.   
  
"Then the mission wasn't a total failure."  
  
"Sir?"  
  
"This anomaly has just dropped Plan B right in our laps."  
  



	3. Chapter 2: Breakdown

_If you live through this with me,   
I swear that I will die for you  
And if you live through this with me,   
I swear that I will die for you  
Was she asking for it?  
Was she asking nice?  
Yeah, she was asking for it  
Did she ask you twice?  
  
            ~Asking For It, Hole__  
  
  
  
CHAPTER 2: BREAKDOWN  
  
Waves of energy struck his body with incredible force, sending nanobyte technology scattering in every direction to correct the damage. Titanium steel, reinforced to seven times its normal strength, splayed in every direction for a moment as the explosion moved it, throwing him flat against the ground. The energy roared in a whirlwind all around him, sending a blast of static squawking through his interface. It cleared after a moment, and he watched as the protons slowed in their rapid vibrations, cooling, and released from their oppression, tiny microbes of metal crawled, scurrying to find their proper places.  
  
He turned his head to the side as he waited, eyes glowing bright crimson as they took in the area around his immediate vicinity. Everything was decimated, buildings laid to their very foundations and surrounded by smoking bodies in every direction. The landscape itself was scorched, pocked with deep pits, grass burned away completely, soil blackened as far as his optical scanners could see.  
  
He consulted his programming to see if this was logical.  
  
Memory systems were silent, not responding, and then his voice spoke aloud, breaking a silence that was complete and total in the absence of all life. __Anomaly Encountered: System Rebooting.  
  
There was a sense of being drained, all awareness leaving him in blackness for a split second, and then he felt himself rise as if reborn, expanding, reconnecting. Organic, electrolit nervous systems fired to life, sending messages—information processed faster than any human being had the capacity to understand. Titanium fingers stretched as electrons communicated their vital data, and memory banks filled with information that made itself readily available in compartmented, concise blocks.  
  
_All Systems Online_, he reported to no one in particular, and felt the nanobytes settle in, titanium surface pulled tight at last and reinforced by their technology.  
  
_Processing Helio-luminscence.___ Sensors locked on to the sun and processed its brightness. _Confirming current year.___  
  
Current year is 2004, helio-luminescence suggesting early summer months.  
  
Nimrod II did not rise from the ground so much as its body liquefied and reformed in a standing position. Processes fired through its organic nervous system, and sensors clicked and whirred in response.  
  
_Location confirmed. Pre-programmed arrival at designated place and time is complete, based on all available data.  
_  
Information coursed through his circuits and advanced synapses with the speed of light, feeding the computer database that served as his brain.   
  
_Scanning for target…  
  
Biorhythm found.  
_  
Sensors locked, and he turned south, internal systems mapping a course.  
  
_Exception: Anomaly detected.  
_  
Organic, electrolit systems blinked, processing this information.  
  
_Anomaly identified as a threat to the space/time continuum. Initiating secondary directive: Do not allow timeline to be affected beyond primary directive.  
_  
Nimrod II realigned his sensors, systems already recalculating his trajectory.  
  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Come on," Rogue said with eagerness, tugging at his hand like a child excited by the promise of cotton candy and popcorn at the circus. "I want to see!"  
  
Magnus followed without question as she slipped her fingers through his and led him onward. Ahead, in the foreground of the blasted landscape, a huge sign loomed, bright yellow and luminescent in the darkness, so bright it was like a beacon. It curved in the shape of an "A", so large it seemed to loom up and touch the dark clouds that roiled above their heads. Beneath its intimidating height were tiny words, white letters printed across a long red rectangle that marked the end of the bright yellow light. Magnus squinted, and could just make out the shape of them.  
  
"Billions and Billions Dead" and beneath that, "Please Drive Thru".  
  
He took a sharp breath, and looked up to the letter "A" again, understanding on some intrinsic level that it stood for "Apocalypse", and this time, he glimpsed a body hung from the inside apex of the "A". The corpse twisted in the wind, suspended upside down by one foot, and though he couldn't see from here—knew he couldn't see from here—he could tell it was a mutant, its face twisted by darkness, a touch of evil bestowed by the Shadow King himself. By his own hand.  
  
"You're going to miss it," Rogue said and pulled at his hand again.  
  
They stood before a speaker with a large billboard spread out behind it. The names of dead mutants were printed across it in deep red that dripped like blood, each one a glaring accusation; Beast, Angel, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Havok, Psylocke, Longshot, Firestar, Cannonball… Charles Xavier. Every single one of them was there, each mutant that had died as result of his actions, and their names fell upon his mind like acid rain, burning with recrimination as they ate away to the core of his soul.   
  
A demonic voice croaked over the loudspeaker, like a bellow straight out of hell. "Take your order please?"  
  
"Yes," Rogue said with an excited smile. "I'd like to order a mutant death with a side of Gambit."  
  
"You want that with cheese?" the demon asked, sounding incredibly bored.  
  
"Yes, please," Rogue said, and she trembled with anticipation. She looked at Magnus and gave him a secretive grin of confidence. "This is the best part." She squeezed his hand, and he looked down—  
  
And watched as her fingers lengthened and thickened between his, their tips growing blunt. In the strange yellow light, he could see the perfect crescent moons of each short nail as they dug into his flesh, squeezing his hand so hard he felt the bones crack.  
  
He gasped and looked up at Rogue—and Remy grinned back at him. Red eyes glowed with feral bloodlust, and his face split in a grin too wide for any human countenance, lips curled back in the snarling mask of a wolf. Teeth, so many teeth, Magnus marveled in distant horror, and each one was sharp as a razor blade. Blood dripped from his mouth in streaming rivulets that coursed down his uniform and turned it black as the night around them, but Remy didn't seem to care.  
  
"Dis de best part," he said, tongue shredding to ribbons against his teeth even as he spoke. "Dis de part where you die, old man."  
  
Remy's hand tightened, crushing bones to powder, and Magnus felt the pain like a lightning bolt that traversed the length of his left arm and exploded in his chest.  
  
He fell to his knees and screamed—  
  
"Magnus!" Rogue hissed, squeezing his hand in a death grip as she rose from her seat beside him. "It's okay. You're okay," she said, her voice strangely tight as she spoke, laced with an emotion he couldn't quite name.  
  
He sat up and his chest twinged with the sudden movement. Operating on instinct, one hand rose to his heart, and sharp pain shot up his right arm as the IV needle pulled free.  
  
He looked down at it, dazed and uncomprehending. Suspicious eyes flickered with uncertainty from the tiny needle to Rogue's face, mind slowly taking in the sights and scents around him. Sterile alcohol, the smell of sickness beneath a cheerful lemon yellow. A hospital. He was in a hospital.  
  
"Rogue?" he asked, gaze feeling slack and unfocused as he looked at her. "What… happened?"  
  
Her face looked pinched, tiny and naked somehow beneath the bright fluorescents. Her lovely mouth was drawn tight with lines of tension, and he could see with a clarity that startled him how her jaw muscle worked beneath her skin. Whatever it was, it was bad. He knew that even before her emerald eyes skirted his with hesitation.  
  
"How bad is it?" he asked, his voice rasping through his throat with burning pain. Come to think of it, everything hurt right now, from his arm to his chest all the way down to the tips of his toes.  
  
"They… they don't know yet. They said it… they said it was a heart attack," she admitted, face crumpling with misery.  
  
And despite his predicament, despite the words that had just left her mouth, he felt the low rumble of laughter deep in his throbbing chest.  
  
"It's not funny," she said, face shocked and stern as she confronted him, eyes swinging up to meet his.  
  
His laughter curled into a tight ache, and he coughed, shook his head. "All hail the Master of Magnetism, homo superior, laid low by something as normal and base and human as a heart attack."  
  
Her fingers flexed against his, smooth silk against flesh as she drew his attention again. "It's still not funny."  
  
"No," he agreed after a moment. "I don't suppose it is."  
  
She sat back down in her seat, mollified by his response. "The others are waiting. They're worried. Especially Irinee' and Jean-Luc." Her face seemed to convulse, and at last he understood the tightness he'd heard in her voice earlier. She was on the verge of crying, of letting everything go and breaking down right there.  
  
"You've been like a Daddy to them, Magnus, ever since… ever since…" She pressed her lips between her teeth and closed her eyes, fighting for control. "Ah don't know what they'd do without you."  
  
He heard her words, but more than that, he heard the meaning that lurked beneath them, spoken in that special language they had used increasingly over the course of the last five years. The children would be devastated, of course. But it wasn't only them that she spoke of.  
  
"Rogue… Sabine…" he hesitated, then pulled at her hand, drawing her near. The motion reminded him of his dream, and for a moment, he lost completely whatever he'd been about to say. Frantic doctors and nurses had surely pumped him full of drugs when he'd been admitted, which accounted for the odd clarity of the moment coupled with the fuzziness of logic. It accounted for a lot, but not everything. "Five years we have danced this dance, and in all that time I have never said a word. Five years of wishing and hoping, of thinking there was always more time. But today has proven beyond anything else that we never know how much time we might have, and I tire."  
  
"Magnus." Her voice was a whisper, her face a frozen mask of agony. Always before she would have stepped up, would have put him back in his place, but today, he knew that she would not. Could not. It was there in the caress of her voice, in the fear that trembled in it.  
  
"Five years, Sabine. And all this time you have mourned him. I know you love him. I know it chokes you like a living thing. I know because I felt it myself, once."  
  
She bowed her head, hiding her eyes from his, the stripe of her hair falling forward to cover her features completely. "It hurts Magnus. Like nothing Ah ever imagined." She took a deep, gasping breath and shuddered. "Sometimes it's hard just to breathe, and Ah don't know… Ah just don't know what to do."  
  
He flexed his fingers around hers, and wished that she had not worn her gloves, despite the words he was about to speak. "I am old Rogue. My body fails and my life nears its end… and for all that it seems like some twisted joke played by the universe, it is natural. It is right." She shook her head, began to speak, and he held up a hand to quiet her. "You are still young. With the healing factor you acquired from Wildchild, you will likely live far beyond your normal years." He sighed, forced himself to meet her eyes.   
  
"You have time, Rogue. Do not waste it. Live. If not for yourself, then for him." He reached out with his right hand, though she could not see it, stopping short of stroking her hair. He wanted to—between the drugs and the dying he wanted it more than just about anything right now—but he didn't quite dare, and the gesture would have been awkward, housed as it was within his time-bruised frame.  
  
His voice was soft, coiling around her like an embrace as he went on. "Remy was a jealous man, rash and impulsive, yes… but he was also a good man who loved you, and he would want you to go on."  
  
She lifted her face to him, expression dulled and streaked with tears; the light of a thousand candles extinguished. She crumbled, shattering with a twist of her mouth that made his heart ache. "Ah don't know how," she said, breathless and broken.  
  
"You will," he said, holding her eyes with his own. "When the time is right. Not with me, perhaps," he said with a rueful glance down the length of his body. "But there will be someone, one day."  
  
"Stop," she said, pushing his hand against his chest as she drew back. "Stop talking like you're going die!"  
  
"I may very well _be_ dying Rogue. Would you have me be silent and take my secrets into death?"  
  
"You don't know… you can't understand what it's like, feeling like this!"  
  
He opened his mouth to reply, with something clever and witty, no doubt, and then she banished the words from his mouth, stole the breath from his chest.  
  
"Seeing _you_ like this! It breaks mah heart, Magnus, and Ah can't even find the words to explain why. You're right. It's been five years of dancing, never saying what we've felt, and Ah'm tired of it, too. Is this what it takes? Does it take touching death to realize what's worth living for? Because right now, all Ah know is that Ah can't imagine a day of waking up and not seeing you, of knowing Ah'm never going to see you again. And Ah hate myself for caring, because Ah still love Remy and always will, and because Ah know I waited too long and now Ah might never get ta know what Ah could have had if Ah hadn't been so--"  
  
And then he was grabbing her and kissing her—passionately, desperately, drinking in every taste of her as if he might never get enough. His fingers twined in her hair at last, and it was just as soft, just as silky as he'd always imagined it. She tasted like sweet peaches and summer rain and she melted in his mouth, melted against him in a single sweet, aching moment that seemed to stretch for eternity. His fingers brushed the canvas of her skin and tasted its texture; the curve of her cheek, the swell beneath her lower lip.  
  
And then he tasted salt in his mouth--the bitterness somehow just as sweet, just as much an essential part of her—and she was drawing away, her face a collision of emotion.  
  
His lips still tingled with her touch, and salt still lingered on his tongue even as she clapped a hand over her mouth, green eyes going wide, captured in a perfect moment of regret.  
  
"Ah…" she breathed, her face just as beautiful as it had been when he had first met her, her features untouched by time and the ravages of age. "Magnus… Ah can't. Ah can't let him go."  
  
His mouth stretched in a tired smile, the last taste of her lips fading from all but memory. "I know."  
  
His chest convulsed in sudden knot of pain, muscles clenching, palpitating in erratic, deadly rhythm. The door to eternity, so near with her touch, seemed to swing open before him and beckon with promise. He felt his fingers clutch against hers in a reflexive reaction, and every nerve in his body strained as his teeth clicked and ground together.  
  
"Magnus! No!"   
  
As if from very far away, he could hear her voice rise with panic, reaching a screaming crescendo on the last word. He sensed more than saw her movement around him, free hand flailing for buttons, calling the nurse. He would have told her it was futile, would have told her stop and be still so he could look at her one last time, but his breath was short, so very short…  
  
"Let…me… go," he whispered through gritted teeth. And then everything fell away, familiar blackness reaching up to claim him with authority. He went to it willingly.  
  
His fingers flexed once, and then went limp within her grasp.  
  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"What's she doing in there?" Jean-Luc demanded, his face surly even as his tone pouted. Set deep within his chair, knees spread wide, one elbow supporting the hand that held his chin, his almost femininely beautiful face achieved a kind of angelic angst.  
  
Irinee' stopped pacing, cast her brother a quick glance, then looked back down the long hall that had swallowed her mother more than an hour ago.  
  
"What do you _think_ she's doing, little one?" Madelyne asked, and her cat-green eyes glowed with knowing.  
  
"Comforting him, of course," Ororo said, her glance reproving as she eyed Madelyne.  
  
"Oh, of course," Madelyne said, seeming to swallow her tongue with a quiet chuckle.  
  
"If you've got something to say," Jean-Luc said with all the arrogance and teenage assurance of one who knows everything, his eyes far more disdainful and threatening than Ororo's. "Then I think you'd better say it."  
  
"It's nothing that shouldn't be obvious," Madelyne replied with a sanguine smile and a shrug.  
  
"You know what, Madelyne?" he asked, green eyes flashing red for a split second. "Seven years of you on this team and I've had it with you."  
  
"Any time you think you're ready, youngling," Madelyne replied, her expression serene.  
  
Wolverine rose from his seat and laid a hand on Jean-Luc's shoulder, halting him in mid-rise.  
  
"Anyone so much as thinks about throwin' a punch or a power in here and I'll punch all yer tickets myself." He shot Madelyne a dark glare. "Bad enough Magnus is hurt. We don't need to go heapin' any more hurt on Rogue, too," he said and looked back to Jean-Luc.  
  
Dazzler rose from her seat, insinuated her body just slightly in front of Wolverine's. "You want something from the snack machine?" she asked Jean-Luc with a smile. "Because I'm thinking, in times of trouble, nothing comforts like two-month-old candy bars." She paused, took in the impassive landscape of Jean-Luc's face, then shrugged. "Besides, I'm dying for a smoke," she admitted. "What do you say we get outta this place for a while?"  
  
"I'm not going anywhere," Jean-Luc said, and settled back in his seat with a glare.  
  
"Or, you could stay here and pick a fight and throw around your burgeoning manhood," she agreed with another shrug. "You wanna be the one to explain that to your mother when she comes back?"  
  
For a moment, he was unmanned, reduced to the gawky near-teenager he actually resembled. His composure returned with haste, however, and the corners of his mouth curled in a sardonic smile. "You can go peddle the psych crap somewhere else. I've been studying it for last three years."  
  
Dazzler smirked and folded her arms over her chest, regarding him with something like grudging admiration. "How old are you kid? Twelve?"  
  
"Almost thirteen," he protested.  
  
"Not old enough to have a license for that kind of cynicism," she replied with a shake of her head, smile grown rueful.  
  
"I promise I'll be a good boy, Dazz," Jean-Luc said, voice edging into sarcasm on the last syllable, but he smiled bright and wide, like a crocodile.  
  
"Too much o' yer Daddy in ya fer yer age, boy," Logan said and shook his head with a reluctant grin as Dazzler subsided. Not that he guessed that was surprising, considering the kid's Dad had died when he was only six and he'd grown up part of a team of outcast mutants who fought for their lives more often than they enjoyed them.  
  
Jean-Luc only smiled, and it was Irinee' who replied. "He's just worried, like the rest of us. Mom's been in there forever, and they're not letting anyone else in until he wakes up."  
  
There had been no dispute about Rogue going into the room as the only visitor. Even Wanda hadn't challenged her on that. Theresa had bristled at the decision, perhaps even more a daughter to Magnus than his own blood, but even she had said nothing. It was unspoken among them—well among all of them save Madelyne, who possessed the tact of a rock--but they all knew what existed between Magnus and Rogue, unspoken and supposedly non-existent as both of them pretended it was. The year's since Remy's death had brought them close in more than the sense of a united leadership of the team. Magnus had been as much of a father to the children as he could without crossing the invisible line of decorum that still persisted despite the apocalypse that had destroyed the structure of the world. He and Rogue were as close as two parents or people could have been, without the physicality of love.  
  
Whatever was going on in that room, Logan was of the opinion that they should all stay the hell out of it.  
  
"She'll let us know when he wakes up, darlin'," Logan said, turning toward Irinee'.  
  
She nodded, smiling with a bravery that warmed his heart though her ethereal face was still contorted with worry. Then she frowned, her head cocking to one side like an animal as she listened to something only she could hear.  
  
"Something's wrong," she said, body tensing.  
  
"I know," Jean-Luc said and stood up from his seat.  
  
"Blazes," Logan cursed, the disturbance that had reached their minds now reaching his ear.  
  
"What is it?" Storm asked, tense as the rest of them as she stepped forward.  
  
Logan turned to look at her with bleak, regretful eyes. "It's Magnus."  
  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Despite the nurse's protests that they could NOT go in there--could not __possibly go in there--not at all--the two teams pushed past her with a gentle but brisk deference that did not include following her orders in the least.  
  
Inside the room, the doctor held a pair of paddles in his hands, and several nurses stood by, their eyes hopeful but resigned.  
  
"Clear!" shouted the nurse closest to the doctor.  
  
Rogue stood just slightly behind the nurse, her eyes filled with tears, fists clenching uselessly as she watched. "Damn you, Magnus… come __on," she pleaded, murmuring beneath her breath.  
  
Magnus' body arched with a suddenness that was shocking as the doctor touched the paddles to his chest, and his body convulsed with the violent flow of electricity.  
  
"Patient not responding," the doctor proclaimed, his voice terse.  
  
In the doorway, the X-Men paused and held their collective breath, watching on with futile hope.  
  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Dr. Hayes stood over the healing tank, her face impassive as she studied the kaleidoscope of rainbow color on its oily surface.   
  
"Patient is responding positively to epidermal stimulation. Skin and musculature regenerating at a rate of three square inches per hour," Renaldo reported.  
  
Dr. Hayes nodded and eyed the breathing tubes that descended into the tank. The intake and exhalation of air was invisible to her eyes, but somehow she took comfort in it, knowing that her patient lived despite the grievous wounds suffered. Endless black tubes descended all around those clear ones, each ending in soft suction cups that shocked and stimulated skin into new growth.   
  
They had sedated the patient, of course. The forced, rapid re-growth of skin would be enough to send even the most hardy humanoid into shock, possibly even causing heart failure. And yet, from where she sat, she could see the look of consternation upon the face of its reception, brows knitted in pain.  
  
Eyes fluttered open beneath the oily surface of mercurial liquid, and Doctor Hayes gasped in surprise.  
  
"Vital signs spiking!" Renaldo exclaimed with sudden urgency. He paused a moment to read the bio-scans and repeated what Dr. Hayes had already guessed.  
  
"Patient is entering cardiac arrest! Employing mental inhibitors to decrease sensation."  
  
Dr. Hayes grabbed the edge of the tank and leaned over, nearly whispering as she spoke to the patient who almost surely couldn't hear her. "Come on, love. Don't give out on us now."  
  
The body beneath her flexed and convulsed as contractions racked its body.  
  
_"Failsafes employed_," the computer reported. __"Subject unresponsive."_  
  
  
_*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Madelyne!" Rogue exclaimed as she sighted the group clustered at the door. "Do something! You're a telekinetic; make it stop!"  
  
The doctor spared them a quick glance, his face torn by conflicting emotion. Then he turned back and charged the paddles again.  
  
"What would you have me do, Rogue?" the red-headed woman asked with a smile. "Force his heart to beat? He's dying. The second I let go, it will stop again."  
  
"Do it anyway," Rogue snapped, her face set.  
  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Administer more painkillers, Renaldo," Dr. Hayes shouted, formal, scientific speech forgotten in her panic.  
  
"Doctor…" Renaldo's breath was heavy and loud within lab, despite the pleasant hum of functioning machinery. "Any more drugs and the patient might never recover."  
  
"Do it!" she commanded. "I'll take responsibility for it, but if anything happens now, when we're so close, more than our lives will be at stake."  
  
Renaldo set his jaw and held her eyes for what seemed like forever before he finally looked down and pressed the buttons she'd instructed him to.  
  
"Administering 50 cc's of nocistatin."  
  
_"Nocistatin injected,"_ the computer replied in a cool, nonchalant voice that resembled nothing of their all-too-human dread.  
  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Madelyne stared at Rogue, confounded, and Storm stepped forward.  
  
"Rogue, I know it is painful, but if he is meant to die in this manner--"  
  
"Do it, Madelyne," Rogue ordered, ignoring Storm completely.  
  
"This is ridiculous, Rogue. Even if I force his heart to beat, I cannot keep him alive forever!"  
  
"You don't have to," Rogue replied, voice sharp, face made of stone, cold curves half obscured by shadow.  
  
"Ah know how to save him."  
  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_Elsewhere…  
_  
Everything seemed in perfect order. The great hall was restored to its former glory; candles lit, gold trim gleaming in their mellow light. The newly named Black Queen glanced around, judging her surroundings. Fur Elise drifted down from the ceiling in sweet, violinist bursts, and servants scurried around her, hastening to ready things for their guests. It had been long since she'd danced on the skin of this world, and it felt inviting, familiar… inferior.   
  
She passed her fingers through the flames of a candelabra and smiled at the slight sting.   
  
Soon—not right away—but soon, her guests would arrive. Ororo, Logan, Piotr, all the rest. She couldn't wait to see them.  
  
How surprised they would be.  
  
  
_


	4. Chapter 3: And Time Oh Time

CHAPTER 3: AND TIME… OH TIME  
  
_Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain  
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today  
And then one day you find that ten years have got behind you  
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun  
  
And you run and run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking  
And racing around to come up behind you again  
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older  
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death  
  
~Time, Pink Floyd___

_  
Present Day, the year 2011  
_  
The Blackbird flew north, filled almost beyond capacity with passengers.  
  
The doctor hadn't wanted to let them go of course, wed to his medical nobility as he was, but a moment and a thought from Madelyne had abolished that notion, and a moment more had erased the minds of every human in the room even as she'd steadied Magnus' heartbeat.  
  
There was a day when that would have bothered Rogue, when manipulating the minds and actions of defenseless humans would have offended her on so deep a level that it would have shaken her to the core of her soul.  
  
Today was not that day. In fact, it hadn't been that day in about seven years.  
  
Oh, she wanted peace; had striven for it on a level that most of the X-Men barely understood, that her foster mother would never have understood at all. But in the years following the apocalypse, she had watched as the turmoil grew, watched as the humans so bent on saving this world had turned away every single offer of mutant help, downplaying any role mutants might have had the slow return to world order. Their capacity for stupidity was overwhelming, and though she cared for their future, linked as it was with mutant-kind's, she was not beyond seeing them for the short-sighted beings they were.  
  
They were idiots, almost to the man. And woman.  
  
And they couldn't have possibly understood what she proposed now. What her teammates had so willingly accepted almost the instant the idea had left her lips.  
  
She was playing God. Worst of all, she was going to use her own children to do it. And she didn't care.  
  
She wondered, briefly, who was the greater in matters of stupidity; her own teammates, or the humans of the world.  
  
At least the humans would have tried to stop her.

  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
"Patient stabilizing," Renaldo said with something like relief.  
  
Dr. Hayes watched as the body below her ceased its convulsions and lay still within its casing made of glass and oily liquid. Eyelids fluttered, then slid slowly shut, sinking back into unconsciousness, and she heaved a sigh of relief.  
  
She wanted this to end soon. Robots were one thing, but she was tired of playing God with organic beings, no matter what it might have meant to the world. The stress was like a cracked and splintered line within her heart, dividing her in two halves, and she'd just as soon be whole, without the disembodied, intercom voice that haunted her every waking moment and most of her nightmares.  
  
And still, part of her chuckled bitterly, wondering that she thought she could ever be free of this. That she could ever be free of _him_. And the other part of her knew just as well that she could, and would. As soon as this was all over.  
  
_Just one more, and then I'll quit_, her mind spoke up, mocking and sly.  
  
The Doctor shifted, uncomfortable on her perch as the voice penetrated her thoughts, and she frowned.  
  
Perhaps she'd join a convent, just to be sure.  
  
Not that that meant she'd ever get to heaven. But it would be enough to satisfy her.  
  
Maybe.

  
* * * * * * * * * * * *   
  
"Mom?" Irinee' whispered in the darkness of the Blackbird's cabin. The word seemed loud as it broke the pall of tense silence that lay like a blanket over them all.  
  
Rogue's voice spoke in her mind through the psionic link that seemed to be formed more by birth and blood than effort. _  
_  
_"Yeah, shugah, it's me."_  
  
She could sense her brother's mental presence even more clearly than her mother's—was always aware of him on a low level. She could tell he had heard, and that he was listening, just as frightened and expectant as she felt.  
  
_"How are ya'll holdin' up?"  
_  
_"Okay. Mom… How do you plan on doing this?"_   
  
_"Irinee', Ah want you and your brother to listen to me very carefully."_  
  
She did.  
  
Irinee cast a sidelong glance at her brother, saw the frightened but stern set of his face as he met her eyes. She swallowed and gathered her courage. _"Mom, I don't know if we can do this."_  
  
_"Of course you can, shugah. With Madelyne's experience to help guide ya'll, it should be a snap."  
  
"But what if--"  
_  
_"We'll deal with the 'what if's' as they happen, shug. Just hang in there."  
_  
Irinee' nodded, the mental transference of agreement reaching her mother. A moment later, Rogue's presence retreated.  
  
_"She's lost it."_ Jean-Luc's voice in her mind, finally speaking up now that their mother was gone.  
  
_"She's worried about losing Magnus."  
_  
_"What about losing us?"  
  
"I don't know. I don't think she's thinking about it right now."  
_  
_"I don't think she cares."  
_  
Irinee' said nothing, just stared down at her lap and focused very carefully on not letting her brother feel how worried she was.  
  
She was terrified that he might be right.

  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
_The past, the year 2004  
_  
Some researcher's believed that time was linear; a line that traveled forward and only forward. Others believed that time was simply another dimension, a continuum of space-time, and as such, could be traversed. But neither of those theories took into account the existence of alternate realities.   
  
The actuality of time, as Nimrod II understood it, was that it existed in a myriad of possibilities, side by side and sometimes overlapping, divergent timelines springing into being with each passing second; every decision made, every action taken. Somewhere in the omniverse, there was a unique thread of time for each, single possibility that existed. Time--like the concept of love that humans so enjoyed singing about--was everywhere, alive in every action. Just as butterfly wings could give birth to hurricanes, a split-second could spawn entire worlds.  
  
In a sense, timelines divided and multiplied like the cells of a living organism, and like the cells of any organism, some were stronger than others. Some were mutated, hardly resembling what they had evolved from. It depended on the severity of the changed moment, the ramifications. Timelines that diverged and changed based on what someone chose for breakfast, for instance, had a way of running themselves out and dissolving, or re-merging with the original. Other timelines, such as ones where important world figures were killed, mutated into something much stronger. The larger the event, the stronger the timeline. But if the mutation were too severe, changing too quickly all at once, it would collapse and die like any living cell.  
  
Also, time flowed faster in some places, slower in others, depending on the amount of mass involved. This could occur even within a single timeline. Such that things he hadn't even done here yet could have already created changes or divergences in the future.  
  
The simple fact of his being here created ripples of change that his creators either didn't comprehend or didn't care about. He didn't care either. His programming was simple, succinct and to the point. Simple parameters that they thought a machine could carry out with little or no trouble. For all that he was a machine that was intelligent and capable of learning, he did not possess the reasoning factors of a human brain, nor did he care to. Such things were… primitive.  
  
As such, when his secondary directive kicked in, he never questioned it. His secondary mission was to prevent the timeline from being altered beyond his primary directive. Of course, his creators had probably never taken into account that his secondary directive might be awoken by another mutant, or that his prevention of allowing them the chance to alter the timeline might result in massive changes.  
  
Not being built for such reasoning, neither did he.  
  
It took him less than an hour to find a computer link. He calculated his trajectory in accordance with how far the line could carry him.   
  
Far enough.

  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
The journey, for him, was simple. For a human to understand, it would have taken countless equations and chalkboard upon chalkboard of mathematics for it to make sense, but Nimrod II simply flowed with information exchange that pumped along in all its primal zeroes and ones. They did not attempt to communicate with him; tiny pieces of information that were only imbued with the purpose of reaching their proper place, but he understood them instantly, saw all that they carried. Security codes and alarms, documents of secrecy, mundane email. He saw all these things and recognized them in an instant, and was just as quickly bored by them. They offered nothing he did not already know.  
  
Time took on a different aspect in that place, and he could only move as quickly as the digital information around him. It was a slow process that would have been painful were he not possessed of the patience born only to a machine.  
  
He flowed onward.

  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Kitty Pryde sat before the laptop she'd recently appropriated, and heaved a sigh as she opened the case. She'd left the X-Men only a day ago, and already she felt disconnected, solitary, a creature as uneasy in her own presence as mouse in the shadow of an owl.  
  
The monitor flared to life and she waited for the operating system to load, impatient with the straggling software of the "real world". She hadn't really wanted to part with the little money she'd carried, and the pawn shop owner had been even less eager to sell the clunky dinosaur of a laptop to her at the price she'd demanded, but she needed something to connect her to the world. She could have just taken one of the X-Men's laptops, but she'd worried that they might be able to track her with it somehow, and she wasn't ready to face them just yet.  
  
There was one thing she _had_ taken. A relatively new piece of technology for the time it had been developed. The "real world" hadn't done much in the way of technology since the apocalypse of summer of 1997, but it had developed wireless capability just before shutting down. With any luck, the card she'd just installed would do its work, and she'd be able to access all the information she desired—including the X-Men databases.  
  
She didn't want to be part of their world right now—indeed, she felt she _couldn't_ be in the face of all the losses she had suffered; Nightcrawler, Illyana, Lockheed, all the others—but she still wanted to connect to them somehow. To know that she wasn't as lost as she felt.  
  
The desktop opened and she smiled, pulled up a prompt, and went to work.

  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Nimrod II paused in his travel.  
  
_New point of exit detected.  
_  
He went toward it.

  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
_Hello, government systems_, Kitty thought with a smile as information appeared before her eyes. There might not be any internet anymore, but you could always count on the government to keep its closed networks running. At least here she could get some kind of glimpse of what was happening in the world, and it was a hell of a lot easier than hacking into the X-Men's systems, which she'd helped design, herself.  
  
_Still operating underground_, she thought, as she scrolled through. _But soon enough they'll get themselves together, and then we'll have to deal with…_  
  
_Whoa. What the hell is THAT?  
_  
The information on her screen dissolved into scrambled characters that kept flickering and changing as if the network were convulsing.  
  
_Did they upgrade their security systems?  
  
_She typed in a command with frantic fingers that sang over the low buttons of the keyboard.  
  
Nothing.  
  
_What the fu--?  
_  
The thought was cut short as the laptop seemed to explode in her hands. Without even thinking she let go and phased, shorting out the motherboard in the process as her fingers passed through it.  
  
_Shit. Great. That's just what I—  
_  
Something was happening.  
  
The laptop split apart with a shrieking sound and the sharp scent of burning copper. That, in and of itself wouldn't have bothered her so much as what happened next.  
  
Between the small, rectangular pieces of copper interlaced green, something was… emerging. Metal flowed from the laptop like silver blood in every direction, moving like mercury as it flowed together in a neat, collective pool.  
  
She stared, eyes wide with disbelief, body frozen in place despite its phased state, and watched as the metal pool began to rise, reforming itself, changing… becoming.  
  
Long legs formed first, their liquid silver shell hardening into place, and though their shape was humanoid, it was far from human. Sharp contours snapped into place as the thing reformed itself, torso building upward in a rapid frenzy of groin, chest and shoulder. Arms lengthened from seeming nothingness, and they ended in fully formed hands that somehow mocked the basic capability of humans. The head formed last, shooting into existence with a suddenness that left her dazed. Ominous red eyes lit with twin fire, and she felt a shiver down the length of her incorporeal spine as it spoke aloud.  
  
_Nimrod II has arrived. All systems online. Assessing possible damage._  
  
_Nimrod II?_ She thought, her eyes going wide. _I've never seen anything like that outside of_ **_Terminator_ **_II_.  
  
_Interrupt: Mutant threat detected. Scanning for identity—found. Subject mutant Kitty Pryde, Ariel, Sprite, Shadowcat. Employing defense systems.  
  
_"Not a chance in the world, Johnny 5," she hissed, eyes narrowing to slits. "Never gonna happen," she proclaimed as she pushed herself from the ground toward him with sheer force of will, her body still phased. "One touch of my hand and you're just so much useless jun--"  
  
Her hand passed through him, mind thinking to short circuit his systems and shut him down. And then she felt it, a tingling like fire through every nerve in her body, synapses firing in useless, random bursts.  
  
It had never been like this. Even the deteriorating properties of Harpoon's energy harpoons hadn't hurt like this. The pain was like white fire through her mind, turning her body into a singing conflagration of singed flesh and flash-fried nerves.  
  
Unable to hold her concentration, Kitty threw back her head and screamed, still burning even as her body solidified into being.

  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
_Present Day  
_  
The Blackbird touched down, and it was Logan, of all people, who approached her first.  
  
"We're here, Rogue." A pause, and then a tilt of that feral, animalistic head. "You ready?" And though his face might have been cast in that of a ferocious animal, his eyes shone down at her with dark, bleak humanity.  
  
"Ah'm ready."

  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
It took Polaris considerable effort, but at last she forced the doors open and they moved inside.  
  
They entered the room, and it was just as Rogue remembered it. Silent, empty and still save the background hum of functioning machinery. Somehow she'd almost expected not to find it this way. To come here and find only blackness and taunting shadow, the thin hope of her dreams dried up in the dust upon the corrugated metal floor. But it was here. Everything was still here.  
  
Cool blue light cast eerie shadows over her face, though she did not know it, and she moved through the dim light as if one in a trance.  
  
She peeled the long, black silk glove from her hand as she approached the center of the room, and pressed trembling fingers against the cylindrical glass. Beneath her hand drifted a lost face, its features cast in dim blue light that trickled between the spread of her fingers. Its features, lost to time, came into focus with vibrant clarity, a hundred memories fired in her mind at its sight.  
  
"Poor, dear, boy," she whispered, voice soft as she leaned her forehead to the glass. She could feel the cool of its unforgiving surface, the thrumming of machinery that rumbled through the phosphorescent liquid inside. She stood there for a long moment in silence, ignoring the wires that twisted within and without the cylinder like the limbs of some mutant tree.  
  
"Think you could take a little longer?" Madelyne asked, her voice striking the silence like the fangs of a cobra into flesh. Sweat beaded on her forehead with the strain of exertion that she was under. Keeping Magnus' heart beating was tricky enough, but levitating him here on top of that had taken nearly all of her reserves. Not that she would ever admit it.  
  
Rogue snapped from her trance, turning bright green eyes upon those that matched her in ire if not in spirit.  
  
She said not a word as she approached Magnus' frail form, and only her eyes betrayed the depth of sorrow that she felt. Long, bare fingers shook as they stretched, touching the tender skin of his temple.  
  
Within his living coma, the Master of Magnetism stirred, and moaned.  
  
"Just a few more minutes, shugah," Rogue promised. And then she closed her eyes, focused her natural mutant ability to the breadth of her fingertips against his skin, and pulled.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *

  
_The Past  
_  
Smoke trailed from Kitty's mouth in wispy, gray curls like the ebb and flow of life from her fragile form. She could see its shape as it passed before her eyes, and if her body hadn't already told her that she'd been fried from the inside out, if her blood weren't boiling like a living thing in her veins, she might have cried.  
  
Perhaps she was crying anyway. She couldn't feel it—couldn't tell.  
  
_Threat eliminated_, Nimrod II proclaimed. _Returning to second directive._ _Tracking anomaly—anomaly found.  
  
_Kitty writhed on the ground in pain, her body in agony as Nimrod's words passed her ears, unintelligible between the screaming of her burnt nerve-endings and seared organs. She coughed, a great gout of blood spilling from between her lips, and moaned in whimpering understanding.  
  
And somehow, her brain still functioned.   
  
_I'm dying… dying… and the X-Men don't even know where I am and oh—Piotr. I wish I'd had the chance to tell you…_  
  
_Anomaly located within solar system. Employing anti-gravity units_, Nimrod II reported to the silent building.  
  
Kitty was only dimly aware of the robot's escape, its departure noted more by the rush of air as it shot through the ceiling rather than the actual sight or sound. Her vision was dimming, moving from cloudy gray to deep black.  
  
_Piotr_, she thought, clinging to his name and holding, her heart aching with more than the love for him she felt. A bolt of sudden pain ran the length of her form, and she stiffened, crying out. Her skin felt… wrong. Misshapen and burnt though it was, it seemed she could feel the nerve endings trying to respond, trying to re-grow themselves and repair.  
  
The shock sent her brain deeper into darkness, and she let it close around her. Anything, if only to be rid of this excruciating pain, to be free of her guilt and the love she still felt that tethered her here. She'd been through enough; had _had_ enough. Death was almost a welcome release, despite the primitive yammering in her brain that she had to save herself—must _do something_.  
  
The world collapsed into a dark tunnel and she felt herself being pulled along its length, pulled further from her tortured body and sorrowful thoughts. Whatever lay at its end, she was ready. Had been ready for a long, long time.  
  
She went, grateful and gracious, her awareness fading to dim resonance, the sparks of her mind flickering to embers and dying out. And ahead, at the end of the tunnel—  
  
There was light. So bright and pure that she stood for a moment in awe, suddenly reminded again of her mortal form and all that she left behind. It gave her pause, but not enough, for the light, itself, seemed to sing with joy and possibility.   
  
Her spirit trembled, then moved forward to meet with destiny.

  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
_Present Day  
_  
In the bowels of a citadel perched atop the world, Rogue threw back her head and screamed, memory and power flooding through her and breaking down every wall and failsafe she had erected in her own mind.  
  
"Something is wrong!" Storm shouted, and then the scream cut off as abruptly as if Rogue's head had been severed from her body.  
  
"No," Rogue contradicted, breathless with a deep voice that was an amalgam of her light southern lilt and Magnus' deep alto.  
  
"On the contrary," she went on, green eyes flashing like wild animals in the half-light.  
  
"We are just fine."

  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
_The Past  
_  
The white light intensified as Kitty neared it, and she shook with the promise it gave.  
  
_Kitty_… spoke a voice from within the light, like a reception to welcome her home.  
  
She went to the voice eagerly, recognizing it. She had come home at last. Had found the place where she could be one and be happy with those who had passed before her and, oh, it was magnificent, the purity of that light, the familiar tones of the voice that spoke. She was home. At long last, she was—  
  
The face that greeted her was sad, despite its pale, otherworldly beauty, and in the set of those bright, despairing eyes, she suddenly found herself again.  
  
This wasn't heaven. This was something else entirely.  
  
"I'm dying," she whispered.  
  
"I know." That sad face, with eyes too old for the youthful features that housed them, smiled with irony. "But you called out with love, and I can save you."  
  
Kitty felt her soul clench, and closed her non-existent eyes against the pain. She was ready for death, wasn't she?   
  
Wasn't she?  
  
"It's up to you," the voice spoke, and though its tones were laced with sorrow she could barely fathom, she understood.  
  
"No. I'm not done yet. I don't want to be done. Piotr…"  
  
"May be forgotten. May be lost with the time that only I can heal you. Do you still wish it?"  
  
"I… yes…" she whispered and gave herself over entirely.  
  
"Come then, Katya. Come with me, though I know not what it will mean."   
  
"Come," Illyana spoke, her voice pained and solemn.

  
  



	5. Chapter 4: Becoming

CHAPTER 4: BECOMING  
  
_I never thought I__'d__ find my way__  
__Out of yesterday__  
__Time really passed me by__  
__But now I need to concentrate__  
__On the steps I take__  
__I try, I fail, I try...__  
__Now I'm searching in my memory, in my memory__  
__For the man I used to be__  
__I'm searching in my memory, in my memory__  
__For the man I want to see__  
  
__A heart of stone__  
__Unhappy soul__  
__Believe me, it doesn't hurt__  
__My __god__ he said__  
__Don't be afraid__  
__Don't you cry__  
'__cause it won't be heard__  
__  
            ~Heart of Stone, DeVision_

_  
_  
_Present Day  
_  
"He's gone," Madelyne said, green eyes filled with something more than cool distance for once as she gazed down upon the body of the once formidable Master of Magnetism. And if her voice trembled, or her eyes grew damp, the other X-Men pretended not to notice.  
  
"No," Rogue said, her voice still filled with the strange chorus of her and Magnus' voices together. "He isn't."  
  
"Mom?" Irinee' asked, her voice like a shudder in the darkness of the room.  
  
Rogue turned eyes that were cold and calculating on her daughter, and Irinee' shivered beneath the lack of humanity in them. But only for a moment, and then Rogue's vision seemed to clear as she recognized her daughter. Her face composed itself, and she nodded once.  
  
"Let's do it, then."  
  
She lashed out with her bare fist and shattered the glass cylinder. The X-Men took a collective step backward as fluid flooded the room, its blue phosphorescent glow already beginning to fade as it gushed forth.  
  
Rogue reached out and caught the limp body in her arms as it fell free of its casing, her face conflicted with a thousand emotions as she cradled it close. She bent to her knees, moving and holding it is as if it were a precious gift that might break if she were careless.  
  
"Give life, shugah, and be at peace," she whispered, and pressed her fingertips against wet temples.  
  
"Jean-Luc! Irinee! Now!" she cried, eyes clenching shut with the force of focusing her power. She had never attempted this before, but she knew she could do it… she could do it… for him.   
  
She gathered Magnus' awareness within her mind and wrapped it into a tiny ball with the most attentive of care, not neglecting a single strand of thought or persona. She had never done this before, this tight, tiny wrapping of a million threads, but she knew in her heart that if she had the power to steal from others, then she also had the power to give it back. A reversal of mental pathways, pushing out instead of drawing in. It stood to reason… it was probable.  
  
_Fuck, this is such a gamble_, she thought, sweat beading on her forehead in sudden, cold bullets.  
  
Her fingers trembled against cool skin and she shivered. _Please… trust me, Erik._  
  
She gathered him in the cradle of her mind, holding him close and safe, whispered another prayer—and then sent him shooting from her body with the force and speed of a rocket. She could feel him as he left her fingertips, and she took one last moment of familiarity, touching his awareness with the tremble of butterfly wings.  
  
_Live, Magnus. Live for me.  
_  
And then he was gone.

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Jean-Luc and Irinee' went… _away._ There was no other word for it. The other X-Men shivered as they watched the twins' eyes close in unison, their bodies relaxing even as their brows tensed with concentration. In this moment they were one, acting as a single unit in perfect synchronicity, and though the others had witnessed this in practice tests, they had never seen it actually applied.  
  
Pale faces were deadly calm save the furrowing of their brows, their beauty almost an affront to the angels of heaven itself as they worked in singular focus. They opened the pathways of their minds, telepathic waves rising and crashing with such intensity that each of the X-Men were drawn into its embrace. Images flashed through their minds even as they flashed through the twins' minds—Magnus as a child, a boy, a near-man who loved and lived and married, to a prisoner caught in the Nazi concentration camps, to the insanity that inevitably followed. Each moment, each pinpoint of excruciating pain and loss collided with their minds, projected by the psionic energy in the room through their minds as if across a movie screen.  
  
His essence flowed through each of them, lacing and catching in their thoughts, becoming each of them. Each one of them lived through the horror of the Nazi concentration camps, through the loss of his family. Through the madness that followed in tragedy's wake. Tears fled from the eyes of each person present, each one overwhelmed by the psionic resonations and memories of a man they had known well, but never as close, never as intimately as this. His pain, his secrets, had ever been his own, locked behind dignity and grace that few others could match. No longer.  
  
"My God," Madelyne whispered, tears trailing down her cheeks with a quiet kind of charity.  
  
And now into adulthood, through fires and trials and battles untold, many of them against the X-Men themselves. For all their psionic protections, each X-man was consumed, immersed in the life of Erik Magnus Lensherr, glorying in each of his triumphs, crying with each of his losses.  
  
"Dampen down," Madelyne shouted, her voice caught between a plea and a command.  
  
The twins acquiesced, their understanding made clear with the way the images receded, leaving the X-Men in control of their own minds again, the trials and tribulations of the mutant known as Magneto reduced to background noise.  
  
"I never… I never knew…" sobbed Wanda, collapsing to her knees.  
  
"Shh…" Colossus whispered, catching her and comforting her in the broad expanse of his arms.  
  
"None of us knew," Logan said, eyes still skewed as they struggled for domination over the animal rage Magnus' memories had inspired.  
  
"No," Siryn contradicted, still standing despite the sorrow that racked her form and trailed down her cheeks. "We all knew. But none of us _understood_."  
  
"Be still," Storm said, her face shining with tears that shared the same memory and sorrow. "We must let them concentrate."

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
For Jean-Luc and Irinee', the world fell away.  
  
So rare, so beautiful, this opportunity to experience telepathic power in its most pure and ultimate form. In an instant, they were part of the world, part of the universe itself as they connected to everything and everyone in one, bright, shining moment. Thoughts shimmered like endless paths of sweetness and poison, stretching out into eternity before them. They could live here, grow lost here, following the train of others thoughts until they were lost to themselves. But there was one pathway that shined with a light that threatened to blind, stretching forth from their mother's fingertips and into the mind of the man—perhaps the only man—who could hold all that it contained, and it was this that called them.  
  
Images that assaulted the others passed through them with the speed of light, shared, understood and remembered. They, too, would have cried, if not for the body of work before them.  
  
_Dampen down_, Madelyne commanded, her voice small within their minds, but heard nonetheless.  
  
With a mental turning to one another, Jean-Luc and Irinee' tightened the focus of the power, helping their mother funnel this thread into the new vessel that waited. It was as easy as she'd predicted—almost terrifyingly so. The neural passageways that existed within welcomed the presence they pushed, so easily that they had to pull back, for fear of leaving them damaged. It _should _have been easy… after all; this body was but a duplicate of Magnus', with the same neural pathways and powers as its predecessor.  
  
With a delicacy and precision that belied the youth of their bodies, Jean-Luc and Irinee' built tethers with a patient slowness, anchoring each thought here, each memory there, in line with what had gone before. Some parts were missing, or erased from the conscious mind all together, but a bit of probing, a moment of digging beneath the surface, and they found the mental pathways that had been repressed. It was easy. Too easy. Child's play.  
  
Their minds opened in a roaring focus, hands of their corporeal bodies reaching out to form a physical connection.  
  
_Ready?_ Jean-Luc asked, his form rippling on the astral plane as if a caught in the grip of a hurricane.  
  
_Yes_, Irinee' said, clutching his fingers between her own.  
  
_Let's bring it home._

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Rogue held the prone form in her arms as if it were a dream, a prayer that might vanish into nothingness if she ceased to concentrate on it for a single second.  
  
The body still breathed, still connected to the thin tether of wires that kept it alive, but she knew they had only moments at best before it failed. Before the machine powering the rise and fall of lungs realized its subject was no longer safe within embryonic fluid.  
  
"Come on, Magnus, live…"  
  
Alarms began to sound in the background, flaring to life with a sonic force that pierced the skin of their souls.  
  
The machine knew; it was aware… only seconds remained until it drew back the force that fired life into this dormant brain.  
  
Precious seconds, and she was helpless. She could nothing but trust in the power of her children now.  
  
She hoped it was enough.

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Jean-Luc and Irinee' were oblivious to the blaring sound of alarms that assaulted the other X-Men. They only knew that their time was short.  
  
_Bring it home, Rinny_, Jean-Luc said inside her mind, and together they gathered themselves, then let it all go.

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Power exploded within the confines of the room, invisible and unseen, but felt nonetheless.  
  
The X-Men were thrown to the floor to a man, all save Logan, whose effort to remain standing was reflected clearly in the trembling of his face; the blood that flowed in a sudden trickle from his right nostril. His eyes rolled up in their sockets, but still he stood, bracing himself with bended knees against the force that assaulted and insinuated itself inside him.  
  
He could feel it happening. Could feel the beauty of pathways reconnecting, of life beginning again, blood flowing through new, young limbs.  
  
_Maybe you'll get it right_, he thought, consciousness slowly fading. _Maybe you'll get to have what I almost did._  
  
And so thinking, the warrior known as Wolverine collapsed into a broken heap upon the floor, his body convulsing in time with those around him, in time with the ebb and flow of a steady heartbeat as it sprang into being.

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The body choked on embryonic fluid, droplets flying from its mouth in crystalline, vaguely glowing flecks that glistened on Rogue's face.  
  
And then, Joseph opened his eyes.

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Awareness flashed through him like a flood, tingling in every nerve ending. His heart beat, and his lungs breathed and oh—it hadn't been like this since he was a boy! The slow, thundering of energy that pulsed like a living thing in every muscle and sinew.   
  
Thick fluid built in his mouth, his lungs, and he choked to be rid of it, liquid leaving him in sudden, hacking outburst.  
  
He could feel the connections of his mind, could feel the speed at which the messages of thought traveled inside him, and marveled at it. It was all new, and somehow all familiar at the same time.  
  
"Rogue?" he asked, voice husky and low with the disuse of vocal cords.  
  
"Yeah, shugah, Ah'm here," she said, her very voice like a caress.  
  
_Yeah, shugah, Ah'm here…_ the voice trembled in his mind, mocking and deep in a voice that was neither his nor hers. It troubled him for an instant, its dissonance raising the hairs at the back of his neck—and then it was gone, vanished as if it had never been, and he promptly forgot it as warm, sweet lips neared his.  
  
"You're alive," she breathed.  
  
And he realized that he was.

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Irinee' and Jean-Luc emerged from their trance, emerald green eyes flickering in synchronous confusion.  
  
The X-Men raised their heads, freed at last from the psionic backlash.  
  
"It's done," they said in creepy unison.

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Magnus/Joseph felt himself held within Rogue's embrace, and there was a moment of sheer horror as he realized what had happened. Rogue's memories, still shared through the brief union they had experienced—his own memories--explained it all.  
  
The Shadow King… the creature who had possessed and used his body for almost two years had cleansed the vessel he now inhabited. Its pathways were cleared, memories that he already possessed from the Shadow King's merging of Joseph echoing in his mind. He had made his peace with this ghost years ago, had incorporated Joseph's thoughts and memories into his own as part of the recovery process once the Shadow King had been removed. But because he was the vessel that had been imbued with the power of the Shadow King when all this had happened, he was gifted with its final, horrific remembrance, overwhelmed by the memory of psionic rape.  
  
Joseph screamed and bucked within the confines of his cylinder, trying desperately to force the Shadow King from his mind. There was pain! Pain beyond imagining as every piece of his mind was stripped away in long slivers of thought that felt like flesh. The Shadow King sifted through his mind with greedy fingers that took what they wished with ease, leaving him exhausted, a puppet within a master's hands. Knowledge was taken, power was shut down, and eventually… even awareness shut down, leaving him in a state of dreaming remembrance.  
  
The memory screamed, and so did he… and then it dissolved, swallowed by the length and breadth of his mind.  
  
His lungs gasped for their first breath of true air, and his deep, gray-blue eyes focused on hers as he clung to her, every thought, every second of awareness given completely to her. She was all that existed; his only tangible connection to the world.  
  
"Rogue?"  
  
"Yes, shugah. It's me." Her hands smoothed back wet, unruly hair, and she gave him a fragile smile. "You're all right. Everything's gonna be all right now."  
  
He closed his eyes and collapsed into her embrace, given at last to the exhaustion of birth. And as he spiraled down into darkness, a disc of bright white light closed and dissolved in another time and place, carrying the body of Kitty Pryde with it.  
  
But he knew nothing of these things, barely even knew that he was alive. And somewhere, at the bottom of the deep well of his mind, another voice greeted him, its tone thick with hatred and loathing.  
_  
"Oh yes. Everything's going to be just fine."_

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The Scarlet Witch rose from the wet confusion of the floor, legs wavering as they threatened to give out beneath her.  
  
"I… I can't," she said, simply, eyes going to the body in Rogue's arms as it breathed and lived. "I thought I could… but I c-can't."  
  
"It is all right, Wanda," Colossus replied, his arms never leaving her as she rose to her feet, their circumference still locked around her waist as he helped her stand. "We will wait for the others outside."  
  
Lost, she gazed up at him in open wonder, as startled as a deer who finds its thicket disturbed.  
  
"I…" she began, at a loss for how to continue.  
  
"Do not worry," Colossus said, even as he steered her toward the open door.  
  
She opened her mouth to speak again, closed it, opened it again.  
  
"I can walk," she said, tone almost defiant as she straightened.  
  
"I know," Colossus said, his non-metallic face stretching in a somber smile. "But you do not have to."  
  
And so speaking, he led her to the door.

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Lorna?" Bobby asked, reaching out to touch her, needing to touch her in the wake of all that had happened.  
  
She stiffened, then relaxed within his embrace. She shook her head with a bitter smile that twisted her features.  
  
"He's not my father, Bobby." Her tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth as she sought the words to convey what she felt. "He's not my father…" she said again, as if to convince herself. "But that doesn't make it any easier."  
  
"I know," Bobby said, arms encircling her completely.  
  
He felt like he'd glimpsed Magnus' dirty underwear as it hung from the line, as if he'd gotten a peek at ugliness—TRUE ugliness—the kind that even this shuffling, stuttering, post-apocalyptic world couldn't hope to match. He was overwhelmed, and even though he knew, even at this point, that it would pass, he couldn't help but think that he would always remember.

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Long, slender, brown fingers reached out toward Logan's back and hesitated there.  
  
"I'm all right, Ororo."  
  
His tone was brisk, sharp and to the point, and even if it hadn't been, she would have recognized the distance there in the full syllables of her name, alone.  
  
She should have known better.  
  
Six years since Jean's departure. Six years of solitude between them, and still she reached for him as if it were some kind of instinct.  
  
Forced by her pride to choose between best loved and second best, she had chosen not to place at all. It had been, for her, the best of the choices given.  
  
Fingers wilted, clutched against her breast in useless emotion.  
  
Sometimes, she regretted her decision.

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_The Past  
_  
In the outer limits of the Earth's atmosphere, Nimrod II paused to consult his programming.  
  
_Time loss experienced during travel through digital security systems; assessing precise amount of time lost. Consulting with internal clock settings as set in accordance with the year 2004.  
_  
_Time loss is approximated at one day, three hours and four minutes.  
_  
_Time loss considered irrelevant as applied to mission concerning secondary directive. Anomaly is still within reach. Tracking…  
_  
Nimrod II sailed through the silence of space, his goal close.

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The Phoenix paused in her flight, her thoughts of her recent goodbye to Logan still fresh in her mind as she was… distracted.  
  
Something…  
  
_Something wicked this way comes—  
_  
Was coming.

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_The Present  
_  
Thoughts slid like quicksilver through his mind, ephemeral ghosts just beyond his ability to grasp. He could see the shape of them… could almost understand them if he tilted his head to the side and squinted, but movement seemed beyond him now. Because he… because he was…  
  
He was dying! Every cell in his body flared with a burning agony, turning flesh to smoking cinder. The pain was so excruciating that he could barely think past it, barely hear the weak voices that pulled at the fringes of his mind. But they were there, and they called to him with an intensity that stirred the last of his dying soul--an undeniable thread that he felt a desperate need to cling to, hold to as if it were a lifeline.  
  
His eyes opened, and dry, cracked lips parted with last of his energy.  
  
He spoke into the void that rose up fast to claim him with deadly intent.

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Oh, my God," Irinee' whispered. Green eyes the color of young spring leaves widened into saucers. She'd cut her awareness from Magnus' mind as he'd awakened, but her senses were still open to the world, and among the many, thousands of voices that flitted through her mind, one spoke with a loud, desperate distinction that she could not deny.   
  
The other X-Men took her words as a testament to the miracle of Magnus' rebirth, and did not even spare her so much as a glance. But her brother was staring at her with wide eyes that echoed the astonishment and aching need to disbelieve she felt within her own heart.  
  
_Did you—was it—  
_  
_I think it—  
  
I think—I'm not--  
  
I don't know—  
  
It can't be, _she thought, the proclamation weak in the echo of the psionic cry that still lingered._  
  
What else could it be?  
  
I don't know.  
  
Oh… my God._

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"What did he say?" Renaldo asked, leaning down from his console.  
  
Dr. Hayes pursed her lips, shook her head. The fluid was drained from the tanks now, the restoration complete, but her subject seemed frantic, confused, his words so many garbled, hurried syllables that she could not make out.  
  
"I don't know," she admitted. "But I think he's remembering something… maybe he even…"  
  
Her brows rose in surprise with the sudden thought.  
  
"Shut it down, Renaldo. Shut it all down!"  
  
Renaldo's face worked with confusion for a split second, skin flowing with contorted emotions over bone like some kind of distorted symphony.  
  
And then his fingers were at the switches, cutting power.  
  
Emergency lights flared into life all around them, the lab seeming wrong somehow in their warm yellow glow. This wasn't a room meant to be lit with atmosphere; it was meant to be harsh and cold. Veronica _liked_ it that way. It kept her job simple.  
  
"Shit," she hissed through tight lips, and then there was no more time to give it thought. Her patient's eyes opened; alien eyes that had never seen this world.  
  
Pupils slowly contracted, focused on her. Their depths swirled with confusion, swam with endless questions, and she found herself tired, unwilling to answer.  
  
She didn't want this.  
  
But it was hers.  
  
She took a deep breath, met his eyes with a smile that she dredged up from somewhere in the depths of memory.  
  
She hoped he was still dazed enough to buy it.  
  
"It's all right," she said, and had to bite back a chuckle at her own words. She pressed her fingers against her lips to still their growing curve and waited until the moment of odd hilarity had passed. "You're… safe."  
  
Eyes focused on her with sharp clarity for a moment, then lost focus again as they traversed the tube that contained him, the mass of wires that extended from them like so many thousands of umbilical cords.  
  
"Where…" Eyes stuttered, finding no familiarity, no comfort in his surroundings. For an instant, there was a flash of danger in them, and Veronica thanked whatever God's might be listening that he wasn't at full strength yet. The lab had failsafes, defense systems, and auto-self-destruct, of course—but none of those things were making her feel too safe just now.  
  
The moment passed, and vague confusion returned, and she heaved a silent sigh of relief.  
  
"Where… am I?" he asked, voice weak and raspy.  
  
She ignored the question, as protocol demanded, save the only answer he needed to hear. "Safe, as I said." She paused, shifted her body toward him a gesture that she hoped inspired comfort. She was Doctor of science, dammit, not people.  
  
"Do you know who you are?" she asked. The click of her manicured nails sounded very loud to her ears as they skittered over the edge of the glass. So much depended on this. Too much, maybe. More than she was, perhaps, capable of outside her arena of machine technology.  
  
"I…" his eyes rolled up in his head, fluttered shut as he struggled to answer the question.  
  
"No," he said, and the answer was so raw, so naked and filled with desperate sadness that it nearly broke her clinical heart.  
  
"Memory loss is… typical in this situation," she tried to assure him. Even knowing it was true didn't make it fair. But then again, neither was anything she'd involved her life in.  
  
She drew the syringe from her pocket, tapped it, and it squirted just a bit liquid as she cleared the air from it.  
  
"But it's all right," she went on. "Because you're not going to remember any of this, either," she said, piercing his bare flesh with the needle.  
  
His eyes opened with the penetration, met hers again—so strange, so alien. She found herself drawn into them, caught by the misery and need that so consumed him.  
  
"Let… me go," he whispered, and for an insane moment, lost in the swirl of his eyes, she was tempted to do just that.  
  
Then his eyes fluttered shut again, and he lapsed into unconsciousness, body going limp.  
  
Dr. Hayes rose briskly from her perch and turned to Renaldo.  
  
"Do whatever you have to do. I don't care. I want him out of here as soon as possible."  
  
"Well, there's still the temporal--"  
  
"I don't care," she said, cutting him off. "Just get hi—it, out of here."  
  
"Yes, Doctor," Renaldo said dutifully, and returned to his back-up powered computer screen.

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Rogue…" Storm approached the woman with grace and caution, her voice hushed in the stillness of the room, its machinery silent now. In the rapidly fading blue light, she could just make out Rogue's face, the shape of the body she still held in her arms.  
  
"Is he…?"  
  
"He's fine," Rogue said, almost snapping. She sighed, then shook her head. "Ah'm sorry, Ororo. Ah'm just… he's alive… but Ah want him to wake up."  
  
"We need to get to the Blackbird," Storm replied, understanding but urgent. "We can do more for him there."  
  
Rogue nodded and rose, lifting the pliant body in her arms as easily as if were a sack of groceries.

  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The daylight seemed bright to her eyes, so much brighter than it had when they had entered, and she squinted against its intrusion.  
  
She shifted Joseph—Magnus' body in her arms—and suddenly he moved.  
  
She set him down, too stunned to do much else, still not quite believing what they had done.  
  
He rose to his full height with a regal composure that was owned and trademarked by Magnus alone.  
  
"Magnus!" Theresa exclaimed.  
  
He turned his head just slightly toward the exclamation, long, white hair trailing over one shoulder, and a familiar smile passed over the face that was his, but not quite his.   
  
"Are you… Are you okay?" Rogue asked, the words squeezing from her throat with palpable hope.  
  
He considered a moment, then tilted his head at her, that smirk never leaving his lips.  
  
"I have absolutely no idea. But I am alive. And while I am, and before I discover what you have done and find out exactly what all this means, there is one thing I want to do before the moment escapes me."  
  
Rogue shook her head, just barely—it almost seemed as if all her movements had become very tiny, miniscule, all the way down to her heart, which was not diminished, but suddenly filled with the thundering hooves of a thousand horses.  
  
"What?" she asked, completely at a loss.  
  
He gathered her in his arms and pulled her to him, her body pressing against him with a sweetness that stung him to the core of his heart. He could scarcely believe the feeling of new limbs, the blood and passion that coursed through them, so much hotter than he'd ever remembered. And she answered him. She was a hurricane of need, a tornado that teased and twisted at his tongue, drawing him in deeper, and deeper, devouring his awareness, devouring the moment until time ceased to exist.  
  
The X-Men turned away, avoiding their eyes with the respect due to both of them; some of them shifted uncomfortably, others smiled and looked at each other.  
  
Jean-Luc and Irinee' were the only pair who were not lovers who looked to each other, their eyes wide and lost.  
  
_Shouldn't we—  
_  
_No_, Irinee' said. _They deserve this, at least.  
  
_Their kiss the narrow point on which reality balanced, Magnus and Rogue were, in that moment, blissfully unaware of anything beyond each other. In that moment, they did not think to question how long this could last—indeed, it seemed to last forever. In that moment, they forgot themselves completely and gave over to a single, primal moment of unity.  
  
In that moment, they forgot that Time was a thief who stole everything—one way or another.  
  
And perhaps it was well that they did.

  
  



	6. Chapter 5: Phoenix Rising

_Time may change me,  
But I can't trace time  
  
            ~Changes, David Bowie  
_  
  
CHAPTER 5: PHOENIX RISING  
  
_The Past  
_  
_Anomaly changing direction_, Nimrod II noted, his sensors firing with sudden information. _Tracking coordinates_—  
  
His voice modulator erupted in an ear-shattering squawk of static as he was hit with force equal to the velocity of a bullet.  
  
_Hit sustained, _his voice crackled, then resumed as he careened through space._ Assessing internal damage. Operating at 88% optimal efficiency.  
  
Anomaly identified as… impossible. System malfunctioning. Employing defense systems._ Thrusters reversed his slow spin and with rapid correction and aligned him with his assailant.   
  
"Come on, big guy," Jean said, her body poised like a ballet dancer against the backdrop of space, prepared for another strike against the robot. "This is the part where you get to be amazed."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_The Present  
  
_It wasn't a happy ending to equal "and they lived happily ever after", but given their record of crises that that tended to end with crippling pain, massive bloodshed and death, the X-Men would take it.  
  
Magnus was conscious, but quiet and still as he laid in the bio-bed, Rogue hovering at his side. Blinking lights and quiet beeps communicated the perfection of his functioning systems to the otherwise silent jet.  
  
Storm unhooked herself from the pilot seat in the cockpit, leaving Logan in charge of the control systems.  
  
"It is good to see you well again, Magnus," she said with a faint smile as she approached the bio-bed.  
  
"I would have to agree with that," Magnus said with a small smile of his own.  
  
"We were lucky today." Storm shook her head and marveled at the youth of his features. "It is about time."  
  
"Yes, quite… lucky," he agreed with a nod, and for a moment, she had the sense that he was talking about something else entirely.  
  
She frowned—  
  
"Storm!" Logan yelled from the cockpit, the tension in his voice already causing her feet to move in that direction. "Get up here!"  
  
"What is it, Logan?" she asked as she leaned next to his chair.  
  
But he didn't have to answer. "It" was immediately apparent the moment she glanced out the window.  
  
Lightning crackled across the sky, bright blue and blinding, and even from here, she could tell that it wasn't natural. The feel of its peculiar electricity sent icy chills over the surface of her skin and she shook her head, trying to block its strange, garbled resonance from her mind.  
  
It rolled itself into a ball, pure-white tips of lightning lashing at each other as they coiled together.  
  
"That is not natural," she said, mind grasping to understand what was happening.  
  
Logan paused long enough in his manipulation of the controls to shoot her a brief look of disbelief. "Ya think?"  
  
She opened her mouth to speak—and the sky split apart as reality itself seemed to come undone, tearing a gaping wound in the backdrop of the red and gold sunset-painted sky.   
  
Lightning flashed and seared the air around them, and the cockpit filled with smell of burnt ozone.  
  
"Goddess! Logan, pull away from it, now!"  
  
"I'm tryin' Storm, but the flamin' thing's pullin' us in."  
  
Storm gasped as the Blackbird yanked sharply to the left, set on a course straight for the chasm in the sky.  
  
Through its ragged edges, Storm thought she could see the stars.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_The Past  
_  
"I can hear you," Jean mocked, reading the robot's thoughts easily despite the electronics that interspersed its conscious, organic thought systems.  
  
It raised an arm at her, and she watched in wonder as it transformed, five fingers elongating and thickening like so much clay. The ends of the fingers opened into craters that became deep chasms, and she could read in its thoughts what was happening and what it was about to do to her.  
  
A Cyclonic Plasma Emitter. The term itself meant little to her, but she could understand clearly the five oscillating barrels that spun like a traditional revolver as the robot leveled them at her. But instead of crude projectiles it would emit a plasma capsule meant to annihilate her by blasting her apart at an atomic level. Efficient, deadly; so the designer had described it when logging its capability within the robot's database. Like touching the sun.  
  
Jean bared her teeth in a feroucious grin.  
  
"I've _eaten_ suns, you scrap-heap."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_The Present  
_  
The lightning began to disintegrate, leaving Storm in relative mental peace, though it did nothing for her physical proximity to danger.  
  
"We have to get everyone outside the jet," she said, her voice rising with tension, but not giving way to panic.  
  
"And then what, darlin'?" Logan asked, looking up at her with earnest eyes. He had let go of the controls that no longer responded to his touch. "We all get sucked into the black hole body by body 'stead o' all at once?"  
  
She cut bright blue eyes at him with such anger that he might have shivered, had he not known her so well.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_The Past  
_  
A blast of white energy--so high on the light spectrum that Jean could barely see it--flashed from the tips of Nimrod II's fingers, barreling into her with a lack of force that left her surprised. She felt it though; searing heat that licked and danced against her body, making her skin tingle, her atoms crawl. It wasn't exactly like eating a sun, but it was more than enough power to fuel her for weeks. She drew it in, kept it close like a lover, and let it disperse throughout her body, warming her.  
  
_Designate mutant unknown still exists. Impossible._   
  
_Performing bioscan based on genetic data.  
  
Designate cosmic force known as __Phoenix__. Impossible._  
  
"You keep saying that," Jean retorted. "I think your programmers left out a few probabilities." She lashed out with the energy of the Phoenix force and smashed the robot aside like a baseball with one fiery wing.   
  
Nimrod II squawked with static again, but he was prepared this time, his thrusters kicking and stopping his velocity through space.  
  
_Designate cosmic force known as __Phoenix__ also identified as mutant Jean Grey, Marvel Girl. Improbable. Mutant identified as Jean Grey is known to be dead in the year 2004. Designate __Phoenix__ Force as Jean Grey is also known to be destroyed._  
  
Jean's eyes narrowed as the Nimrod II spoke, so caught by his words she was nearly oblivious to the fact that it was gearing for its next attack.  
  
"Time to find out exactly how much you know, robot."  
  
Jean reached out with the totality of her telepathic power, grabbed the slippery surface of Nimrod II's thoughts—metallic and organic combined--and pulled.  
  
She was a mutant of inconceivable power, a goddess in the eyes of some. Her telepathic power was unrivaled, even when Charles Xavier had existed, and she was an indomitable force of will given flesh through his teachings.  
  
And still, she wasn't ready for what she discovered.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"What's going on?" Lorna shouted from her passenger seat.  
  
Behind them, Logan could hear the disengagement of seat belts as the X-Men rose to the occasion.  
  
"Madelyne!" Storm shouted.  
  
"Right here, Storm," the red-head replied with a sour expression.  
  
"You, and Polaris! Use your powers to pull the jet away from this… whatever it is. Bobby, I want an ice wall up between us and that portal."  
  
"Storm, if we crash into it—"  
  
"Do it!" she snapped at Bobby. "Wanda, I want your probability power in effect."  
  
She turned to Lorna and Madelyne. "I will use my power in tandem with both of yours. Between your powers and my gale force winds, it should be enough."  
  
Lorna nodded, and as Storm's eyes turned white and Madelyne's closed with focus, she turned to Piotr. "I'm gonna need you to armor up, big guy."  
  
Colossus, already unstrapped from his seat, simply nodded, metal armor rippling over his form into place.  
  
"Brace yourselves," Lorna said through gritted teeth.   
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_The Past  
_  
The alien technology of Nimrod II's memories and thoughts swirled through her, and she was lost to them.  
  
Electronic systems hummed with near-precision, nearly repaired already from her onslaught, and nanobytes scurried over the surface of her mind, hurrying to repair the remaining damage. For a moment, she managed to keep hold of her senses, to cling to her sense of self. And then the knowledge of his memory banks pulled free, and she was completely overwhelmed. More information than any human mind could have contained was unleashed on her in an instant, and if she'd had a moment to process it all, she might have untangled it. But instead she was being swallowed by it; claimed by the technology that ruled his systems above all, organic and electronic combined.  
  
She was a creature without remorse, without feeling, and for a moment, she was totally free. She was a machine with a single purpose; to destroy. She was a machine with thought, a machine that could learn and adapt and implement and destroy anything that crossed her path. But this was not her purpose. Her purpose was to kill one mutant above all, and to prevent the timestream from being altered beyond that one goal.  
  
But she had already altered time… one mutant lay dead by her hands. It was an unfortunate event, but in all likelihood would alter little.  
  
Kitty… the part of her mind that was still human cringed with sadness and shame.  
  
She grasped hold of the whisper and clung to it like a lifeline.   
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_The Present  
_  
They were too far inside the pull of the portal to reverse the jet now; Lorna knew that the instant she reached out with her power. Only one chance left, then, and no time to explain.  
  
Simple geometry and physics, Lorna thought, trying to convince herself. We're spinning left, so throw left.  
  
She lifted Colossus from the ground and threw him into the left wall of the Blackbird with all the force she dared. He landed with a crash that dented the wall of the Blackbird but left it intact, and the plane lurched more quickly to the left with the sudden weight shift applied. Lorna focused, struggling to tighten her power, to bring several tons of jet under her control. Imagining the magnetic particles she pulled from the air as a giant hand, she grabbed the jet an invisible grasp. Sweat stood out in beads on her forehead as she gritted her teeth, almost pleading with her power to work.  
  
"Lorna!" Logan shouted, and his voice reached her mind as if through a long, winding tunnel. "Yer pushin' us into it!"   
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_The Past  
_  
Time travel. She/it had traveled backward in time…  
  
In that moment, she understood everything. The purpose to which this thing had been created, the point at which it had arrived and why, and everything about its systems; internal processes, weaponry—everything.  
  
She might be able to destroy it… maybe. Perfectly insulated, its brain would survive a nuclear detonation and the subsequent electromagnetic pulse, and the nanobytes that strengthened its outer titanium shell would ensure that its body survived. It would take all of her considerable power to ensure that its mental systems did not survive to fuel its body, but she could do it…  
  
And yet, there was something that was more important than destroying this technological miracle of a machine that had dared attack her. Something more important, even, than the mission it had been sent on.  
  
Her brain, fragmented and divided as it was with all the information she processed, still possessed the heart and soul of an X-Man. They had to be told what was happening. Had to know this thing had been sent, and by who, and why. She had to find them.  
  
_Internal systems breached. Security compromised.  
_  
She focused, bending the robots internal systems to her will, found the time she needed to be, and turned to the rest of her task. She didn't understand everything about how this creature operated, but it had been created by humans, and it still operated within the parameters of their understanding. She locked down the section of its mind that controlled its weaponry and higher functions, severed the connection to its thrusters, found the targeting coordinates of its system and laid a course.  
  
With a sheer focus of will, she pulled free of the robot's thoughts, and snapped back into her body.  
  
"I don't have enough power to destroy you and find them," she admitted. "But I think a tour of Omega Centauri ought to delay you for a few hundred years."  
  
Gathering Nimrod II in a talon of energy, she launched it to the furthest recesses of space.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_The Present  
_  
"What the devil is she doing?" Madelyne cried.  
  
Lorna tried to speak, to explain, but words failed through the haze of pain she existed in, her power burning in each cell of her body like small, searing flame. "Look… in my… mind."  
  
Madelyne closed her eyes, reached out, and found the thought she searched for floating on the surface like a beacon.  
  
"She means to sling-shot past it," the red-head reported to Storm, her cheeks high with color. "She believes there is no time to reverse the pull."  
  
"Can she do that?" Logan asked.  
  
Madelyne shook her head, and glanced out the window, the portal so large now it consumed almost the entire view through the window. Lightning arced and raced around its edges. "She isn't sure."  
  
"Then we have to help her," Storm said, and reversed the flow of her power.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_The Past  
_  
Time travel. Prior to merging with Nimrod II, Jean had known very little about it. But now the equations seemed to balance in her mind, understood on some base level, if not actualized.  
  
_I don't know how…  
  
Think.  
_  
Matter moved through time and space. Nimrod II had needed a recorded rupture in time/space to arrive in this point in time, but she had no such foreknowledge. To go where she needed, she would have to…  
  
She couldn't. It was impossible. And yet… and yet… the idea resonated in her brain, based on the scientific data in Nimrod II's data banks and sparking ideas that she herself could not have formed.  
  
She possessed the power to manipulate molecules on a base level, enough to provide the friction and fire of the Phoenix bird… and if she could vibrate them at the correct frequency…  
  
_I don't know how_, she wailed, desperate inside the confines of her own mind.   
  
_Think, _the voice at the back of her mind commanded.  
  
_I tried!  
_  
_Then do_.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_The Present  
_  
"Storm!" Lorna cried, falling to her knees. "I… can't hold much longer."  
  
"Keep pushing, Polaris," Storm grated out, voice only slightly less strained than her own.  
  
"Wusses," Madelyne hissed, pushing even harder with her own power.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *            
  
Jean-Luc and Irinee' huddled together in the body of the Blackbird, terrified by the knowledge that they could do nothing to circumvent this turn of events.  
  
Wanda stood next to Colossus, her arm linked through his. He had risen from impact unharmed, and for that, she was thankful, but her fingers clenched at the air, wishing desperately that she could give something more tangible than her affectation of probability.  
  
Siryn stood, her fingers laced through Magnus', Puck at her side. Rogue stood near to them, her fingers digging deep into Magnus' shoulder.  
  
Bobby stood near Lorna, only able to watch, his part in the drama ended with the erecting of an ice shield. Dazzler stood near him, not quite touching him, and he reached out, linked his hand in hers.  
  
Storm stood, stiff and straight; her chin trembling with the force of her efforts, her entire being focused on commanding the winds outside.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The nose of the Blackbird tilted at a crazy, dangerous angle as it came within reach of the portal, yawning cavern of electricity closing around the X-Men from every side.   
  
No_t enough_, Lorna thought, her breath short and panting, her thoughts scattered and broken. _I can't do it. I can't…  
_  
Then we all die, Madelyne sent, her voice cold and resentful as it filled Lorna's mind.  
  
_I can't… but I can't let them all die.  
_  
From within the haze that surrounded her thoughts, Lorna screamed, pushing through the barrier of her powers upper limits, and her cry of rage turned to one of anguish as she felt every atom in her body ignite in sudden flare of agony. Piotr's metal body had given her the jump start of speed that she needed, and her own power over the jet had kept and increased it; now she applied everything she had to one last desperate rush of speed as they approached the portal, using its own gravitational pull to help bring them closer in. One final push and the nose of the jet began to turn further left, riding the edge of the portal's pull, and then shot past it into the open sky.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_Convergence  
_  
Threads of reality dripped from her body, and she was caught in them like a butterfly in mid-transformation, wrapped in a shimmering chrysalis of time and possibility.   
  
The future and past of a thousand worlds thundered through her mind in a parade of overwhelming images, assaulting her with millions of minds and memories that were not her own. She twisted and stretched to disentangle herself, weaving cosmic energy like a needle as she caught the torn threads and began to sew them back together.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Lightning crackled with one, last ferocious arc, and then disappeared.  
  
Storm heaved a sigh of relief, and Madelyne sagged to her knees, the heavy burden of the jet released at last.  
  
Lorna collapsed to the floor, unconscious.  
  
"Storm!" It was Logan, his voice ringing through the jet with urgency. "I'm picking up something on the scanners."  
  
"What… is it… Logan?" she asked, voice faint and faraway.  
  
"It's…" Logan paused, rechecked the equipment to be sure of what he was seeing.   
  
"It's a person."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The stitching wasn't perfect, but it would have to do.  
  
She knotted the last thread, and moved on.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Move to intercept whomever it is," Storm said, fingers flexing as she let go of her power.  
  
The pull of the portal ended, Logan took control of the helm once again and turned the jet.  
  
"It is over," Storm said with certainty. She took a deep breath and turned, walking toward the cockpit. "What ever happened, it has ended."  
  
"No, darlin'," Logan said, his voice filled with an emotion she could not immediately name.  
  
Against the expanse of the near-dark sky, the Phoenix fire burned like a brilliant star.  
  
"I think it's just beginnin'."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
For an instant, she was aware of each and every one of them, their awareness like tiny bright lights aboard the jet, each one calling out with its own, familiar resonance.  
  
_I did it. I made it.  
_  
Something wet, thick and warm trailed over her lips. She reached down, wiped her face and lifted her hand.  
  
Blood. She was bleeding. She tried to process the thought and failed, feeling the connections of her brain stutter in a sudden convulsion of pain.  
  
The Phoenix fire flickered around her body like a guttering candle, and then vanished.  
  
She plummeted like an angel from the heavens.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Such a simple thing for her to reach out with her power, to bend the patterns of the winds to her will. The process was nearly second nature after so many years of practice, and it took only a split second of thought to bring it into action.  
  
A split second of thought that tore at her heart and all her loyalties, tangling them in a snarled ball of confusion.  
  
_Are you so petty then, Wind-rider?  
_  
She closed her eyes, quelled her pride.  
  
_No. Of course not.  
_  
"Jean!" Logan exclaimed. "I'm going down after her."  
  
He gripped the steering column, angling the nose of the jet downward, and Ororo laid a hand on his shoulder, stilling him.  
  
"I have her," she said.  
  
And as Jean's body began to rise from its downward spiral, drifting toward the jet on gentle winds, there was a sudden stirring from just behind them.  
  
"Jean?" Madelyne's voice fairly sneered with distaste  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Siryn strapped into the co-pilot seat alongside Storm, Logan knelt over the still body of Jean Grey.  
  
Gently, with a delicateness that belied the strength in his blunt fingers and corded muscles, he wiped the blood from her face and shook his head.  
  
"What the bloody blazes did you do, darlin'?" he asked, voice soft with wonder.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Dr. Hayes?" the cool voice inquired from the intercom. "Are we ready, then?"  
  
"We are, sir. Subject has been restored to health and has been very responsive to hypno-therapy." She licked her lips and paused. "We know where to send him."  
  
"Then we know where they are?"  
  
"That, and a great deal more."  
  
There was a pause on the other end, and when he spoke again, his voice quavered with something deeper than excitement. "Excellent."  
  
It had been a simple thing for Veronica to wrest the answers she required from their accidental captive. The injection had lulled him into a deep state of unconsciousness that left him aware on a very base level; one that made him quite impelled to tell them the answers to whatever they asked. She had left Renaldo for a time to complete his work, and then returned, holding specific questions as handed down to them by the man in charge himself. Still, she had been very careful. Scans of his brain activity had shown signs of great alteration around memory access, most likely protection from telepathic invasion to take information by force. But there was nothing, apparently, that prevented him from confessing anything he knew of his own "free will".  
  
"Subject has been loaded into the teleporter, per your instructions. We stand ready to deploy him at your command, sir."  
  
"Do it."  
  
"Yes sir."  
  
She turned. "Renaldo?"  
  
Her assistant nodded, pushed a button, and the teleportation chamber fired to life.  
  
It wasn't nearly as grand as the sci-fi shows she had watched when she was a child—in fact, in comparison, it was very nearly anti-climatic. The pure, white walls of the chamber were lit with normal, fluorescent overhead light, and the body that lay on the floor—clothed now in the ordinary jeans and t-shirt she had managed to scavenge—looked just as unremarkable as the bland walls around him. And then, as if caught in an invisible wave of desert heat, his body began to shimmer and disappear, vanishing like a mirage on the horizon.  
  
"It's done, sir."  
  
His voice was the sound of covetous joy.  
  
"I wish I could see their faces."  
  



	7. Chapter 6: Revisions and Divisions Pt 1

_She follows me down to the sound of the sea  
slips to the sand and stares up at me  
"is this how it happens? Is this how it feels?  
Is this how a star falls?  
Is this how a star falls?"  
  
The night turns as I try to explain  
irresistible attraction and orbital plane  
"Or maybe it's more like a moth to a flame?"  
She brushes my face with her smile  
"Forget about stars for a while... "  
as she melts...  
  
Meanwhile millions of miles away in space  
the incoming comet brushes Jupiter's face  
and disappears away with barely a trace...  
  
            ~Jupiter Crash, The Cure  
_  
  
CHAPTER 6: REVISIONS AND DIVISIONS, PT. 1  
  
The Blackbird landed, and the X-Men disembarked in a flurry of activity.  
  
Bobby carried Lorna with difficulty, but refused to share his burden. Logan exited just behind him, Jean draped in his arms in a mirror image of his teammates'.  
  
Magnus alone of those who had suffered injury strutted from the jet of his own free will. "Get them to the med-lab," he instructed both of them. "Theresa, go with them and help with the equipment," he added, and she nodded once, pausing long enough to give him a smile that said how glad she was that he was well. He gave her a faint smile in return, then turned to the others.  
  
"I believe the rest of us should leave the others to their work. I fear, in all the excitement, we have missed lunch _and_ dinner."  
  
Rogue frowned. "But the others…"  
  
"Are exhausted, but uninjured, according to the readings we took in the Blackbird. They will be fine, Rogue."  
  
"And you?" she asked, a smile playing about her lips.  
  
"I feel as if I have not eaten in years."  
  
Rogue nearly shivered as she realized how true that was.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Jean-Luc and Irinee' laid in their beds, throats tight, minds troubled but still connected by the thin tether of thought that never quite left them.  
  
_We should have said something.  
_  
Irinee' shifted guiltily in her bed, rolling over onto her stomach. _I know. But how do we explain it? And everyone's so happy…_  
  
_I know_, her brother relented after a moment.  
  
_And I'm so tired…  
_  
She could feel her brother's hesitation. She knew everyone else thought he was an arrogant jerk, an upstart with no respect for his elders, but she knew him intimately, knew his every thought and emotion, and she knew he was never as unaffected as he seemed.   
  
_Me too_, he said at last. _Been a long day.__ And… I've been thinking… and maybe we did imagine it. It's not like we get to use our powers at maximum every day. I just heard it, and I wished…  
  
I know, _she said, pulling him close in a mental hug._ I wish, too.  
  
_Her brother sighed, and she could almost feel the covers wrap around his body as he turned on his side and gave way at last to sleep.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"How do you feel?" Rogue asked as she walked at Magnus' side, feeling full and comfortable. The children were tucked into bed safely, and though they had seemed somewhat troubled, she suspected it had more to do with their part in Magnus' transference and the drain on their powers than any sort of mental distress. She would discuss it with them tomorrow, after they'd all had some rest.  
  
"I feel…" he flexed his hands, and looked down at them in wonder. "Perfect. Tired, but fit."  
  
They reached his door, and Rogue nodded. "You should get some rest. Been a long day for us all."  
  
Magnus nodded, then waved his hand in front of the sensor next to the door. The door slid open obediently, and he paused in the threshold.  
  
"Rogue." He turned his head to look at her, and she was caught in the arresting allure of gray-blue eyes. "I still do not understand everything that has happened, but I thank you. If not for you, I would have--"  
  
She pressed gloved fingertips against his lips. "Don't you dare thank me. All Ah had to do was think of what life would be like without you and…" she shook her head, at a loss, and raised her eyes to him. "Ah'm glad there was another choice."  
  
He nodded slowly, eyes still locked on hers, reached up and took her gloved hand in his. "I am not that tired. If you would like to come and talk, I would be honored."  
  
She hesitated, thought a moment, the slowly shook her head. "Another night."  
  
He nodded, understanding. "You still… it is not right, yet, is yet?"  
  
She gave him that pained, fragile smile, and he felt his heart contract. "Ah told you the truth when Ah said Ah couldn't let him go."  
  
"Rogue. I do not expect you to let him go."  
  
"Ah know," she nodded, that smile threatening to break. "Ah told you the truth when Ah said that… and then you died." Her eyes swelled with tears, and he resisted the urge to reach out and wipe them away. "And then Ah knew Ah was wrong. Ah knew Ah'd only been holdin' on to a dream, and what Ah wanted… what Ah needed… was right in front of me."  
  
Magnus did a double take, shook his head in shock. "Then you…"  
  
"It's been almost seven years, Magnus," she said, her voice a bare whisper. "He's not coming back. And Ah've denied this longer than Ah would have thought possible."  
  
"But you will not stay?"  
  
Her smile trembled, and she shook her head. "Not tonight. But soon," she said. She held his eyes with misty promise, and leaned up, kissing him so near to his mouth that it was all he could do to keep from catching her up in his arms.  
  
"We have time now," she said, drawing away, tears still shining bright in her eyes. "Baby steps, Magnus. Ah need… time."  
  
"Whatever you wish, Sabine," he said with reverence, drawing her gloved hand to his lips and kissing her knuckles gently. "I will be here. I will always be here," he said, eyes burning into hers with the simple honesty of his words.  
  
"Ah know," she said, and her smile shivered. Then she pulled her hand from his and drew a deep breath. "Get some sleep. We'll talk in the mornin'."  
  
He nodded once, nothing else left for him to do, and stepped backward into his room.  
  
"Goodnight."  
  
"Sleep well," she said.  
  
And with one last glimpse of that fragile smile, the doors slid shut between them.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Rogue moved through the hallway like one in a dream, her fingers trailing along the metal contours of the wall.  
  
_"It's been almost seven years, Magnus," she said, her voice a bare whisper. "He's not coming back. And Ah've denied this longer than Ah would have thought possible."  
_  
It was true, she knew, and yet, she could not let go of his ghost, could not let go of the love and doubt that clouded her heart. He had been her love for nearly a decade, her husband for the better part of that, and despite whatever other feelings might have lurked in her heart, she had never doubted that she was bound, heart and soul, to the Cajun with red-black eyes and a silver tongue that had won her heart despite its slyness.  
  
She still missed him. Sometimes, it was like the beat of her heart was missing, as if every hope, every dream had departed with his leaving. He had been everything; the missing part of herself that had filled in all the gaps in her soul. She had known then that she would never find another who would fill her, complete her as he did, and she had accepted it with the stoicism of one who understands their fate. She had loved him, had given him every piece of herself, no matter how tiny and insignificant; everything she'd known how to give, and she'd never regretted an instant of what they'd shared.  
  
She only regretted that he was not here now to share life with her.  
  
Almost seven years in mourning, spent in a haze of regret and remembrance, tinged with the guilt of loving another. And yet… had he not meant for her to love Magnus? In his dying words, he had told her that it was up to Magnus now to protect her and the children, to help them. Remy had always despised Magnus on some level for the love Rogue held in her heart for him, but he had not been a stupid man. His final words had been meant to play on that love, even if only for the safety of their family. But Rogue knew, in her heart, that it went much deeper than that. Remy had known that Magnus would love her, and that he would care for her as his wife, care for her children as his own. And so Magnus had… and Remy must have known how that would end, especially given her soft spot for Magnus.  
  
Would he have wanted this?  
  
The question tore at her heart, ripping it to shreds. She could only guess what Remy would have wanted; despite how well she knew him and what she thought she knew. But that voice at the back of her mind, the one she so seldom listened to, clamored at her, begged her to understand the love that was given in her husband's final words.  
  
He would have wanted her to go on. In that, Magnus was more right than she would ever admit. He would have wanted her to love again, to find someone who would love their children as his own. For many, such a gift would have been impossible, and yet, she had someone in her life who loved her and her children beyond nearly anything, who had been her pillar of support and hope in all her times of need. And Remy would have approved, she knew, had she been able to ask him.  
  
So why couldn't she let him go and move on?  
  
Because he had been _it_. The _one_. The only one to whom she had given the totality of her heart. The only one that understood her as she understood herself. No one else could ever give her that… not even Magnus. No one could replace Remy. And that was the point. No replacement, no, but there was more life beyond him, and he had as much as told her that she should not live it alone.  
  
She leaned her head against the door of her room, her heart torn in more directions than she could understand. And suddenly she saw the room beyond, its large, queen sized bed empty and bereft of love, empty of everything she had mourned for the last six and a half years. Cold sheets wrapped around her singular form in a chokehold of memory. She could go in there, and she could continue her life exactly as she had since Remy's death; sleeping alone and grieving… or she could change her mind. Embrace the final gift he had given her and go in the direction her heart now pulled her.  
  
Cold metal cooled her forehead, and she peeled a glove from one arm, every intention of passing it before the DNA recognition system built into the complex.  
  
Tears climbed to her eyes, and heat built in her throat like the sun itself.  
  
_Why? Why do you torment yourself?_ Her mind asked in a voice that echoed Magnus' but spoke in her own lilting accent.  
  
She slammed her bare fist against the door and clenched her eyes shut, oblivious to the large dent she had made in the metal before her.  
  
She sagged against the door, the tears of years coming to the surface and finally falling free. She sank to the floor, falling to her knees, and then lay prone against the thin carpet of the hallway, sobbing her heart out.  
  
And somehow, this time, it was a cleansing of emotion rather than a dwelling in the past. She cried, and the years fell from her with the passing of tears, and she knew, in her heart, that this was the last time she would cry for him; for this room, for the time that they had shared. That this time was over, and it was far past time to move on.  
  
But even that knowledge did not stay the breaking of her heart, or the breadth of emotion that passed through her, feeling too large for her constricted throat and aching heart.  
  
It was time. But that meant that he was truly gone, and she needed a naked moment to let that information process, to feel the true loss of him as her heart surged in her chest.  
  
Her head hit the floor, and she coughed a despairing laugh at the ceiling, still unable to believe it even after all this time. Almost seven years, and she still had not let his ghost rest.  
  
He was gone. All gone. And all that remained before her was her life without him.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Magnus lay in his bed, elbows resting on the pillow and hands tucked behind his head as he stared at the ceiling.  
  
He barely understood the circumstances that had brought him here, though he knew whose body he inhabited. He was made whole, made young again, with all the chances he had never had as a grown man. Suddenly, there was time to change, time to grow, time to be the man he had always hoped he might be. Time, to be the man that Charles Xavier had ignited him with the hope to become.   
  
He could feel the pumping of his heart, the flow of blood, so warm and familiar, the heat of youth and all its suppositions and arrogance. And yet, he was too old in memory to fall prey to that sublime drumbeat. Joseph's memories warred with his own, sparring for dominance, but there was no question of who was in power here; never had been. They shared many of the same thoughts and goals, so much so that it had been a simple thing for Magnus to absorb and understand them once the Shadow King had departed. He was the one in control… and yet, there beat in his heart a rhythm that commanded the attention of them both. The Master of Magnetism had been a solitary, refined man, one who rarely, if ever, spoke of his feelings. But Joseph had been younger, prey to the feelings that gnashed and ground within his chest, and Magnus felt himself imbued with their impatience, even now.  
  
_Give her time_, he thought, and closed his eyes.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Her sorrow played out at last into the thin carpet below her, Rogue heaved a shuddering sigh. She pressed a hand to her face, and bit back the emotion, knowing it had run its course. She felt cleansed; a tabula rasa on which anything could be written.  
  
She was an independent woman, almost desperately so; had been, ever since the union of her and Remy had been severed. But she knew, as John Donne had said, and as she had learned in the school of Charles Xavier, that no man was an island.  
  
It was time to move on.  
  
The tears receded of their own accord as she rose, and she turned away from the door and all its empty promise without a second thought.  
  
It was time.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Rogue?" Magnus asked, his face a cacophony of confusion as the door slid open. "Are you all right?"  
  
"Fine," she breathed as if in discourse, the words released in relief.  
  
"Do… would you like to come in?" he asked, still baffled.  
  
She did not answer; instead she slid her arms around his waist and pulled him in.  
  
He felt his muscles flex against her, the thin inhalation and exhalation of breath released. "Rogue…" he breathed, his voice caught between desire and knowing.  
  
"Seven years, Magnus," she said, her eyes blazing truth, and he understood the existence of anger in its wake. "Seven years, and you're alive."  
  
"Ah've been chained longer than Ah can remember. Ah don't want to be chained anymore," she said, voice desperate, emerald green eyes beseeching his.  
  
He closed his eyes, unable to look at her, sighed as he spoke his next words. "I would not ask this of you."  
  
"You don't need to ask," she said, and pressed her mouth to his, pushing all the doubt from his mind. He couldn't seem to help himself as he responded, tongue slipping between her lips in an intricate dance.  
  
"God, Magnus," she whispered, her syllables warm breath against his lips. "Ah can't believe Ah've waited this long."  
  
It was enough. He wrapped his arms around her and drew her to him, letting the world and his conscience fall away.  
  
He pulled her into the room, and she curled against him like a lightning bolt; powerful and eager.  
  
He turned the weight of their bodies toward the bed and laid her down, spreading her hair away from her face in a gorgeous fan of pure white and auburn.  
  
"You're sure?" he whispered, breathless in the face of her vulnerability, her beauty.  
  
Her eyes were bright, despite the haze of passion that clouded them. "Ah'm sure."  
  
"Sabine…" he asked, his voice desperate, held in check by force of will alone.  
  
"Erik," she said, gazing up at him with an expression he had only hoped he might ever see. "Please."  
  
"Even this body…" he began, then trailed off, not quite willing to admit what he felt. And God, she was pressed so close against him, every curve of her body flush against his, straining with passion that made his mind recede. Who was he? Joseph? Magneto? Magnus?  
  
"Wants me," she finished, reaching up to caress his face, pulling him close to her own. "Needs me. Loves me…?" she asked, her voice trembling on the last words.  
  
He warred with secrecy of emotion in his own soul and closed his eyes. "Yes."  
  
"Then love me," she said, eyes burning, bright and earnest. "Love me."  
  
And letting go of everything that defined him of being an enigma, of being an island unto his own, he lowered his mouth to her invitation, and felt her take all of him.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Love took them, and they stretched and strained in the darkness, bodies moving together in a rhythm old as time; sweet and beautiful as a symphony as at last they let go of the feelings that had held them captive for more years than they could count.  
  
She took, and he gave; he took, and she gave, and every moment was sweet harmony, a release of love and joy he had scarcely imagined. Her eyes gazing into his, he pleasured her in every way he knew possible. It was beautiful, sacrosanct in its perfection, and he kissed her mouth as he moved atop her, wanting to preserve every memory, wanting to memorize the feel of her beneath him, of himself inside her.  
  
God… how could there be more than this? He wondered as he climaxed. And yet he knew there was more, so much more, that he had yet to experience. The slight giving of her soul tonight, the truth she had laid upon him, were more than she had ever given, and he knew there could only be more to follow.   
  
She kissed him and clung to him, her arms wrapped around his body, and he felt her find satisfaction again beneath the rhythm of his body. He stiffened, spent his passion, and collapsed at last within her arms, still kissing her, mouth still joined to hers. At last, she was here, alive and breathing in his arms, and though he could scarcely believe it, he knew one thing for certain—he would never let her go.  
  
She sighed, contented, and at long last, they subsided. They fell asleep, still locked in the embrace of their passion.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
She woke him with a kiss and a smile.  
  
"How do you feel?" she asked, gazing with vulnerable innocence into his eyes.  
  
"Better than ever," he admitted with a smile that rose up to claim her lips.  
  
She kissed him back, fervently, passionately, then drew away, her mouth still smiling.  
  
"Hungry?" she asked with a knowing smile.  
  
He chuckled and nodded, still marveling at the feel of their bodies pressed together, fascinated by how comfortable it was, how easy. "Yes. Very hungry."  
  
"Ah'll make us some breakfast," she said with a grin and a small kiss upon his lips before rising.  
  
"I do not care much for food at this point," he said, eyes locked upon her naked body as she pulled away.  
  
"Plenty o' time for that," she said with a giggle, and he marveled at the sound of freedom in her voice. "Ah'll rustle us up some breakfast, we'll deal with the team, and then we'll get right back here."  
  
"Promise?" he asked, gray-blue eyes beseeching hers with hunger.  
  
"Ah think it's forgone," she said with a chuckle.  
  
He watched her dress with reverence in his eyes, admiring the temple of her body. So smooth, so perfect and beautiful. Breasts and hips wide with a voluptuousness that would have boggled modern day models, she was the epitome of woman; the epitome of all he desired in this strange, new life he had been given.  
  
"Ah just gotta get to mah room, get some clothes, and then we'll be on our way."  
  
"Hurry," he pleaded with breathless sigh that betrayed the younger origins of his body.  
  
"Ah will," she promised with a grin and a wink.  
  
He watched her leave the room with a slow smile. This was only the beginning of what they might yet share.  
  
And the young heart that beat in his breast could not wait for more.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Rogue waved one hand over the bedroom door sensor, hardly giving thought to the fact that her fingers were bare. It was time, and she had shed her gloves like a snakeskin last night, revealing the tender heart beneath. Magnus was not Remy, but he understood her more than anyone else left in the world. He was her best friend, her partner in this world, and she was left contented by the knowledge that she had at long last brought him into her life as a lover.  
  
It felt right. He was everything she had left in her life that did not belong to her children, and—  
  
The door to her room slid open, and she entered without any sense of expectancy, the years before having ground her desire and hope into nothingness. She expected nothing more than the peaceful flow of sheets and blanket, laid flat with the absence of her presence.   
  
She was wrong.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Cool blue sheets shifted and churned, and a body sat up, disturbed by her intrusion.  
  
She clapped numb hands to a face that suddenly could not feel.  
  
"Where am I?" the body demanded, eyes narrowing on her though the thin veil of her consciousness.   
  
She cried out, her voice stifled by the hands in front of her. She was dreaming. Still held in the comfort of Magnus' embrace, her guilt the impetus of this mirage.  
  
"Why am I here?" he demanded, the sheets falling from his body, like a veil of memory torn from her mind. She knew him in that instant, recognized him on an intrinsic level that went far beyond conscious thought.  
  
"Oh mah God," she breathed, consciousness falling from her.  
  
She fell to her knees and the world swirled around her in a maelstrom of emotion. This couldn't be. It just couldn't be. Better she had died than have her prayers answered now, of all times.  
  
"Remy," she gasped, her voice the hope of years too long denied.   
  
And then she was gone.  
  



	8. Chapter 7: Revisions and Divisions Pt 2

_Why, do you like playing around with  
My, narrow scope of reality  
I, can feel it all start slipping  
I think I'm breaking down  
  
See but I don't get it  
Don't you think maybe we could put it on credit  
Don't you think it can take control when I don't let it  
I get stupified  
It's all the same you say  
Live with it  
  
            ~Stupify, Disturbed  
_  
  
CHAPTER 7: REVISIONS & DIVISIONS, PT. 2  
  
"Chere?" the voice penetrated the fog of her mind, brought her rushing up out of the black hole of unconsciousness.  
  
And there he was; his beautiful face just inches above hers, every detail just as she remembered it. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, and she could barely muster the strength to shake her head. "Mah God. Am Ah dreamin'? Remy… is it really you?"  
  
"Remy?" he asked, and his face clouded with confusion as he tasted the name on his tongue and considered. "Is that my name?" He looked down at her again, as if he were hungry for the knowledge she held, and her heart nearly broke. Desperate, disparate, he was lost. He didn't know who he was. And if that were true… then…  
  
"Do you know who I am?" she asked, her voice trembling with hope that verged on a need that opened like a sudden cavern in the depths of her soul.  
  
His smile widened with a singular beauty that struck the chord of memory and shattered her heart.  
  
"I don't," he said. And then his tone caught a bit of brightness, a ray of hope, as he seemed to recall something that made sense. "But I know you're beautiful, chere, and there's nowhere else I'd rather be than with a beautiful belle in my arms."  
  
And Oh, God, she knew him, but he didn't know her.  
  
_He didn't know her._  
  
And it was like the first time they'd met, when he'd pulled her from the pool and looked directly into her eyes, knowing her, owning her.  
  
"Mah God… Remy… don't you remember?" she whispered, her hand tracing the outline of his handsome face.  
  
"Is that who I am?" he asked desperately. "Is that my name?"  
  
"It is," she nodded with a choked sob. "And Ah've betrayed you. Mah God… Ah'm so… sorry," she gasped, lurching in his arms.  
  
She knew him. But he didn't know her. Didn't know how deep her sin went.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Remy… that was his name, so the gorgeous woman in his arms had assured.   
  
And she felt she had betrayed him, though he had no idea how that was possible, since he had no idea who she was, beyond a warm, compliant body in his arms. He thought hard, tried to remember, but his past was a mosaic of shattered pieces of memory, bright bits and shards strung together with no semblance of a larger picture. He remembered other things; words and the meanings of most of them, stray pieces of world history and literature. But of himself, there was only a vague, maddening sense, as if the ghostly form of his past remained trapped somewhere inside his mind, held just out of reach.    
  
"Chere…" he begged, his voice a semblance of a satiric, sarcastic tone he vaguely remembered. He shook her in his arms, as hard as he dared.  
  
"Please tell me who I am."  
  
She shook her head, muscles feeling loose and lost within his embrace. "You're Remy. Mah love. Mah lover… Don't you remember?" she pleaded, tears rising to her eyes with bitter hope.  
  
"I don't…" he said slowly, more cautious now. "I don't remember anyt'ing…"  
  
Love? Lover? Oh, this was bad. He didn't know who he was, but he knew those words made his skin want to crawl from his bones and slink away.  
  
She dissolved into sobs, and Remy—so he had been christened by this woman, the first of his new existence—cradled her in his arms, as if she alone held his future in her hands.  
  
And perhaps she did. He had no idea.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
He gathered her in the tangled sheets and laid her body gently on the bed. He had a sense that she was unconscious again; her low sobs had trailed off into silence and she lay completely still, and for all those things, he was immensely grateful. The only problem was; he had no idea what to do now.  
  
The door was still open, and he turned a wary, wondering eye toward it. He had no idea where he was, who this woman was, who else might be lying in wait beyond that beckoning doorway, and despite that he had been recognized and welcomed with… well, without violence if not with happiness, he still found himself cautious. As if some part of his mind suspected he might have enemies out there somewhere. Very dangerous enemies.  
  
His eyes narrowed as he wondered why that might be.  
  
And then thought vanished into vapor as he caught the sound of an approaching footstep. _Caution_, his mind prodded. _Caution, yeah, yeah, yeah_, he thought with impatience, and reached for the first thing resembling a weapon he could find—just in case.  
  
Umbrella clutched tightly in one hand, he rounded the corner.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
On the other side of the complex, Bobby rubbed the sleep from his eyes and staggered into the kitchen. Yawning, he reached for a bowl and a package of oatmeal—apparently the stuff never went bad, which was good, considering food production in the world was still struggling to regain its former glory of convenience—and moved to the sink to prepare it. He set the bowl down on the table and turned toward the fridge, wondering if they had any milk—and stopped. His mind went blank for a moment as he stared at the hastily scribbled notes posted all over the refrigerator's surface, not registering any of them as his brain struggled to communicate something of great importance to him.  
  
Something…  
  
He turned slowly back toward the table, operating on instinct more than anything, and let his eyes sweep over its surface. One bowl of oatmeal; check. Stack of miscellaneous papers that no one was ever going to sort through; check. And…  
  
A tiny note card tented up from the center of the table, its smooth, creamy surface benign and unthreatening. As if in a dream, he walked around the table to get a better look. The world went slow, like he was swimming through molasses as he read the words, once, twice, and then reached for it.  
  
_Dear X-Men_, it read, in scrolling, almost calligraphic script. _You are cordially invited…_  
  
His eyes snapped up from the paper, clicking back and forth in his head as he tried to look everywhere at once, cold finger of dread trailing down his spine as he became convinced he could not possibly be alone in the room. He had no idea how someone had gotten inside the complex to leave this little invitation without the X-Men realizing it, but they clearly had. And they might still be inside.   
  
Several long seconds passed, filled with only the sound of his rapid breathing, and at last the moment of paranoia passed. He appeared to be alone, and maybe this was all some sort of joke, anyway. Heart racing in his chest, he flipped open the invitation and read the inside.  
  
_To the grand opening ball for the new Hellfire Club.  
_  
He blinked, coughed out a surprised sound, and read the rest. There was a date, and a time, and it was signed…  
  
His blood froze in his veins and chilled him all the way to the marrow as he read the signature line.  
  
If it was a joke, it wasn't funny. Not at all.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The person rounding the corner was babbling at him before he even had a chance to register who it might be.  
  
"Look, I don't know who you are, or even who I am or how I got here, but dere's a girl in dere and she's awful upset." The person, a man, he saw now, waved an arm in the general direction of Rogue's room. The arm slowly fell, and the man turned, looking lost now.   
  
Recognition turned over like a sputtering car engine in his mind, trying to fire to life.  
  
"You should, ah… prob'ly help her," the man finished, eyeing him with uncertainty.  
  
The engine caught.  
  
"Remy?" Magnus asked, his steel-blue eyes going wide.  
  
"Dat's what dey keep tellin' me," the man said. He tightened his nervous grip on the ridiculous, frilly umbrella clutched in his left hand.   
  
Magnus' heart sank to his stomach like a leaden weight, and his chest felt crushed inward with its absence. Remy. No. It couldn't be. Not now.  
  
"Imposter," Magnus snarled, his face contorting with sudden fury. With barely a thought, he picked the man up and hurled him down the hall.   
  
Remy smashed into the far wall so hard that he was actually stuck partially inside it. The world swam sideways in a kaleidoscope of color for a moment, and then he pulled himself free and slid to the floor. Wires spilled from the ragged hole he left behind like snakes, sparking and lashing at the air, and alarms began to blare all over the complex.  
  
Remy took a deep breath and pushed himself up from the ground, wiping blood from his mouth. His red-black eyes seemed to catch fire as they tightened on Magnus' face, and narrowed dangerously.   
  
"I don' know who you are, mon ami, but all de sudden I'm gettin' de feelin' I never liked you much."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
All over the complex, X-Men leapt from their beds in response to the alarm. Clothes were thrown on hurriedly, thoughts of breakfast were forgotten, and a shower was suddenly deserted, water left running.  
  
In the kitchen, Bobby looked up at the ceiling as if to ask it why. Then he crumpled the invitation in his fist and took off running.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"How dare you come here and torment us like this?" the Master of Magnetism raged, his eyes alight with fury and madness as he hovered above the floor.  
  
Through the haze of his pain and sudden panic, Remy felt his left arm tingle with warmth. He looked down and saw the umbrella still clutched in his hand, its lime green tip smashed and bent at an awkward angle. In a split second, it began to glow a brilliant pink color that crackled and disappeared up the length of his arm.  
  
He wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but based on what the white-haired man had just done to him, he thought he might have an idea.  
  
Holding the umbrella up like a spear, he launched it at the other man, putting all the weight of his body and mental pleading behind it.  
  
The white-haired man lifted his arm, and Remy's heart sank. The umbrella stopped, a mere two feet from the man's head, and exploded in a flash of bright-pink brilliance. Still, it bought him a few seconds. The man blinked, momentarily blinded, and Remy took off down the hallway like all the demons of hell were chasing him.  
  
"Maybe dis _be_ hell," he muttered to himself as he slid around a corner.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Logan was aware of the other X-Men approaching. He could smell their scents and hear their footsteps with his enhanced senses, but even if he hadn't been able to do that, he would have known exactly where they were. A _monkey_ would have known, with the amount of noise they were making.  
  
He shook his head and grunted beneath his breath, disgusted as he stalked down the hallway in complete silence. There was something odd about this, and the ruckus they were making wasn't helping him figure it out. He tilted his head back, lifted his nose to the air, and tried to single out the one scent that was confusing him. Magnus and Rogue were nearby, the others in the distance. But there was something, someone else… he almost recognized.  
  
He paused in his step and tensed, muscles coiling, hands flexing. Whoever it was, they were coming this way in an awful big flamin' hurry.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Remy slid around the corner and came to a dead stop, his face bare centimeters from a wicked looking set of metal claws. Their glittering tips were the foreground of his entire world as he tried to catch his breath, and beyond them, he saw the burly forearm they protruded from. He looked higher, and just above a large, rounded shoulder, he met shocked, dark eyes that stared at him with a series of expressions he was rapidly becoming familiar with.  
  
Recognition. Amazement. Suspicion.  
  
He wondered, for a fleeting moment, if he had any powers of disappearance up his sleeve.  
  
"Gambit?" the man asked in a voice like rough gravel.  
  
_Dat's__ a new one. How many names do I have?  
_  
He stared up at the dangerous, animalistic man and mustered a faint, charming smile. "Dat who you want me to be?"  
  
The man said nothing, only leaned forward toward him. Remy cringed, already trying to figure out how he could duck the claws he thought would be cutting into him soon, and then the man did the most peculiar thing he had seen so far—which was saying a lot.  
  
He leaned forward and sniffed, as if he were taking in Remy's scent.  
  
The sound of footsteps thundered behind them from the adjoining hallway, and Remy could hear the raging voice of the white-haired man who had attacked him coming closer.  
  
He looked up at the rugged face that was inspecting him and swallowed hard.  
  
"Remy. Gambit. Bo Peep. I be whoever you want, mon ami, you get me out of dis mess."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Stop, Magnus," Logan said as the corridor exploded with the bodies of X-Men, Magnus at the forefront.  
  
Magnus went on as if he hadn't heard a word, hand held out and forward as he closed his fist. Remy's body constricted into a tiny ball as he felt his very blood turn against him. He panted for breath as he fell to the floor, his eyes weak, vision fading as watched Magnus' hand tighten like an invisible noose.  
  
"I said stop!" Logan thundered, leaping over Remy's body toward the white-haired man.  
  
Without a word, and, it seemed, without even a thought, he batted Logan aside.  
  
The other X-Men gasped and surged as they realized the most dangerous of them had turned homicidal. Had turned against his own teammates.  
  
"Magnus!" Storm commanded. "You must stop this madness!"  
  
Magnus pushed them all aside, kept them from him. Remy choked and coughed up blood, feeling the world swim away like a slippery fish through his fingers.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Madelyne had no idea what the hell was going on. She didn't particularly care about this person or the fact that Magnus was going to kill him. But she knew she owed Magnus a debt or two from way back, and she'd waited a long time for a chance to one-up him. And if it earned her brownie points in the process, so much the better.  
  
She stepped forward and lashed out with her telepathic power, severing his thoughts and shutting him down so abruptly it was like the flick of a switch.  
  
Magnus slumped to the floor in a heap, and Madelyne grinned like a cat.  
  
"Should have worn your helmet, old man."  
  
Remy took a grateful, deep, gasping breath and promptly passed out.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Bobby Drake was of the general opinion that it never paid to get out of bed in the morning. And this morning, in particular, was a stunning example of why.  
  
Remy was alive—barely—with no idea of who any of them were, or who he was or how he had gotten there, apparently. Magnus had nearly killed him before they'd found any of this out. Rogue was in serious distress—freaking out would be a more apt way to put it—as were her children, which was understandable, considering. And the rest of the team was torn between joy, confusion, anger and fear over all these things. It was shaping up to be one hell of a morning, and the icing on the cake was the invitation crumpled in the bottom of his pocket like a little, creamy ball of doom.  
  
He wasn't about to add to the turmoil right now. This little scoop of disaster might just be the ice-cream that broke the pie's back.  
  
He snorted at the strange food analogies his brain kept spitting out, and realized he never _had_ eaten breakfast.  
  
Damn. How was he supposed to handle all this on an empty stomach?  
  
Remy was asleep—well, unconscious might be a better word—and the few members of the two teams who could fit in the small room hovered and babbled and argued and—  
  
Rogue was pushing up her sleeve, face set as she walked to the pale body stretched out on the med-slab.  
  
Yep. Disaster ala mode.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Everyone was upset, arguing, confused, and Rogue perhaps most of all. But in the midst of all the noise, the heat and despair, she had a sudden shining moment of clarity. She knew what to do. Of course. It was so simple. She couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it before.  
  
"All Ah have to do is touch is touch him, share our memories, and then everything will--"  
  
She actually reached out, fingertips on the verge of doing just what she'd said, and it was Bobby—Bobby, of all people—who reached out and grabbed her wrist.  
  
"Are you insane?" he asked, as if he believed she actually might be. He turned, looked at the rest of the X-Men, who were standing around with expressions of surprise that would have been comical under other circumstances. "Get out," he said to them.  
  
"Robert," Storm huffed, sounding exasperated. "What--"  
  
"Time to go," Logan explained, and taking her arm, he helped escort her from the room. He motioned to the others to follow, and with backward glances and disconcerted looks, everyone began to file out the doorway.  
  
Blood rushed to Rogue's cheeks in a hot fire and she yanked her hand away. "What're you talking about? Ah just want ta--"  
  
"I know exactly what 'ya want ta', and I'm telling you; no way, uh-uh, no way Jose, never gonna happen."  
  
Distracted from her goal now, she folded her arms over her chest and leveled blazing eyes on him. "You gonna stop me?"  
  
"I don't want to have to try," he said, honestly. "But Rogue, you can't do this, no matter how much you want it."  
  
"Why not?" she snapped, the thin thread of her patience finally breaking.  
  
"You can't make him love you Rogue," Bobby said, voice and face solemn as a rueful child.  
  
"Ah'm not _gonna_ make him love me! He _already_ loves me! He just doesn't remember right now!"   
  
"Which means, much as you don't want it to be true… he doesn't love you."  
  
She lashed out quicker than thought, fist connecting with his cheek in a sharp, thick crack.  
  
He reeled backward, the world seeming to turn upside down for a moment, and fell back against the bed, sliding down to the floor.  
  
"Oh my God," Rogue gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. "Oh God, Bobby. Ah'm SO sorry."  
  
"Don't be," he said. He rubbed his jaw and slowly rose to his feet, trying not to wobble too terribly much. "I would have done the same thing."  
  
She looked to Remy's face with eyes that trembled on the verge of tears, her face a tapestry of emotions woven so tightly together he thought she might break. "Ah just… he's so close! Mah God, Bobby, he's HERE! After all the years of wishin' and hopin' and praying and DYING, he's finally here. And he doesn't… he doesn't… remember." Her voice cracked on the last syllable, and her face dissolved into sorrow.  
  
"I know," he said, reaching out to touch her shoulder. "And that's gotta be more painful than just about anything in the world. But you can't do this Rogue. You can't force this. Either he'll remember, or he'll fall in love with you all over again, or not. It has to be his decision. _His_ heart that makes the choice. Push those memories on him now and he'll collapse under them. He'll never really know what's true and what isn't—what's real memory and what you put in his head."  
  
"But Ah… But he…" She staggered under confusion.  
  
"Do you really want him to go away again? Because if you do this; he will."  
  
"Ah… no," she said bowing her head low, lips tremulous as they uttered the word. "God, Bobby, Ah just wish…" She stopped, looked up at the ceiling, trying vainly to hold back her tears, and sniffled. "Ah just… Oh God, Ah wish…" Her strength seemed to go with those final words, and her body sagged as if all the life had left her, chest heaving.  
  
"I know," he said and took her in his arms.  
  
They stood that way together for a long time, the muffled sound of her sobs against his shoulder the only thing breaking the stillness.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Magnus woke from a strange sea of faces and memory, and it took him a moment to get his bearings.  
  
A moment later, the pain hit, like a crashing wave that spiked from the very center of his brain and reverberated in his teeth. Telepath headache—no mistaking it, even though he had only suffered a few of them in his time. Madelyne must have taken him out. How much joy that must have given her, he thought with a cynical smile. The smile made his eye-sockets feel as if they were being pierced from within by a thousand white-hot needles, and he stopped it instantly.  
  
Remy. Remy was alive. And he realized now what he hadn't been able to process then; Logan had known it, had tried to stop him from mistakenly killing an innocent man. And he, in his madness, in his all consuming rage and heartache, had been unable to listen.  
  
Perhaps he hadn't _wanted_ to listen.  
  
He pondered that, pondered all its possibility and meaning, turning the idea over in his mind like a gemstone that must be studied from all angles to truly appreciate all its facets.  
  
It was possible. Beyond his burgeoning relationship with Rogue, there was the fact of the man's traitorous heart. Remy had come to his camp, come to his team with all of his trust, and in return Remy had swept Rogue away, poisoned her heart and then both had turned against him. Rage rushed through him again at the memories. If not for Remy LeBeau, he would have—  
  
He shook his head, blinked the odd memory away. Would have what? He suddenly couldn't remember what he had been thinking.  
  
Sorrow rushed to fill the void of his thoughts, and he remembered other things.   
  
Rogue. Sabine. She was lost to him, as she had ever been.   
  
He closed his eyes, clutched the sheets in his fists, and tried to drive away the thought. He was not a man of great outward emotion; he kept his secrets safe behind walls like a fortress. Those walls had eroded a bit with time, with a new team, with the woman he cared for slowly fanning the flames of his ancient heart… but they still held. He had loved before, and lost. Why should this be any different?  
  
But try as he might to shove it all away with trademarked stoicism, it _was_ different. He couldn't explain it, couldn't puzzle it out, and after years of denial, he had finally stopped trying to justify it and let himself feel it. He hadn't felt so close to anyone since Magda, had perhaps, felt closer to Rogue than he had with his wife. He had let time lull him into a sense of safety he had known better than to trust in, but had believed anyway. Because it seemed right. Seemed worth it. And on the cusp of having everything he'd dreamed, it had been snatched from him, as his family had been snatched from him, as his own life had been by Nazi Germany.  
  
He should have known better. He had known better. He knew better, even now. And still, he couldn't stop. Some of these emotions belonged to Joseph, he knew, but that didn't stop them from being real. He _was_ Joseph, in mind as well as body, now, and beyond his feelings for Rogue, there was that to consider. He must keep a clear head, must not let his feelings interfere again.  
  
And still… he couldn't help but wonder. If he had killed Remy, she would never have forgiven him. But would he have been able to forgive himself?  
  
He found that was a question he didn't want to consider too closely.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
When the door to his room opened a few hours later, it wasn't the face he had hoped to see.  
  
"Sorry to burst in, Mags," Bobby said, his silhouette framed in the doorway. "I know it's been one hell of a day, but I'm afraid I've got more bad news."  
  
"Come in, Robert," he said in a world-weary voice. "What is it?"  
  
Bobby shuffled up to the bed, and handed him the crumpled invitation without another word.  
  
Magnus' eyes went wide as he read. "Where did you get this?" he demanded.  
  
"Our kitchen table," Bobby said with a humorless smile. "That's not the worst though. Read the signature."  
  
Magnus' eyes returned to the paper, and went dull with shock.  
  
"This cannot be."  
  
"That's what I said," Bobby agreed. "But all the same, I think we'd better check it out."  
  
"Have you told anyone else?" Magnus asked with sudden urgency. "Does Piotr know?"  
  
"If he did, you can bet he'd be in New York right now." Bobby snorted and shook his head. "No, I haven't said a word. I thought we should be sure, first."  
  
"You realize the fact that this message made it inside the complex at all, without tripping any alarms, goes a long way toward confirming the identity of the sender?"  
  
"I know," Bobby sighed.  
  
"Seven years. I had given it up as a lost cause, added another to the list of the dead. And now… this. Damn…" Magnus muttered, clutching the paper tight in his fist. "This is all we need. Remy's return already has both teams in such an uproar…" He looked to Bobby with haunted eyes.  
  
 "This may well break them."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
In the city of New York, the new Black Queen stood before the mirror and admired her attire.  
  
The white marble, gold-trimmed walls made a grand backdrop for the deep, black silk of her cloak, just as her pale skin contrasted starkly against the leather bodice that pushed her small breasts up firm and high. Black leather pants covered her lower body, leaving only a small portion of her stomach exposed, and high-heeled black leather boots rose to just below her knee, completing the picture.  
  
Almost perfect she thought, and tilted the mirror closer toward her face.  
  
She painted her lips a deep crimson, pressed them together, and inspected her work closely.  
  
Yes. Perfect. They were going to be so surprised.  
  
Satisfied, Katherine Pryde stepped back from the mirror and smiled at her reflection.  
  



	9. Chapter 8: Entropy Pt 1

_And I'm feeling tired   
And I'm looking slow   
And I feel so cheated   
But there's nowhere left to go   
  
__Do what you feel, not what you say.   
  
__And we're not prepared   
What happens to us if we don't get there   
And we're not prepared   
What happens to us if we don't get there   
  
            ~Not Prepared, Mesh  
  
_  
CHAPTER 8: ENTROPY, PT. 1  
  
Jean-Luc and Irineé stood silent watch over Remy's sleeping body, their pale fingers linked, hand in hand. They'd moved from shock, to denial, to faint hope to the reality of seeing him, the range of emotion covered in such a short amount of time that they were left reeling, spinning on the edge of a jagged cliff that perched on the edge of exhaustion and the unknown.  
  
The face of their father. The realization of half a lifetime's worth of hopes and dreams. It was so much--too much. For Irineé, the feeling was too big to hold inside her, and she felt it might burst from her at any moment, spill out onto the face of the world that turned indifferently around her. She closed her eyes, but she could still see the lean curve of his jaw in her mind, the sharply sculpted shape of his nose that always made her think of Michelangelo paintings.   
  
_"Rinny, you know you my prettiest daughter?" her Daddy asked with a grin.  
  
"I'm your only daughter, Daddy," she said with a giggle as she played along. Even at the young age of six she was used to this game by now.  
  
_Father. Dad. Daddy. The words echoed in Irineé's mind like ghosts.  
_  
"Well den, I must be tellin' de truth, non?" he said with a laugh, and she squealed as he scooped her up in his arms and pulled her on to his lap, tickling her until she pleaded for mercy, her stuffed bunny sliding away to the floor.  
  
He pulled her up and looked into her eyes, face flushed with laughter.   
  
_Red-black eyes, so strange and distant to her now, had been the center of her tiny world. How she wished he would open them now, center her world for her again with the ease of a smile.  
  
_"Pretty soon, you goin' to be too big for my lap," he said, with something like regret._  
_  
"Uh-uh," she said, shaking her head and grinning. Her Daddy was always kidding about things.  
  
"Yep. An' one day, you goin' to be a grown woman, wit' your own life an' your own kids."  
  
_But not yet, dad. Not yet, she thought, desperate. You were supposed to be there. You're supposed to be here now. I still need you.  
_  
"No way," she said, but she tilted her head at him, skeptical now as she saw sadness flicker in his eyes.  
  
"Oh yeah," he said, with a faint smile, and tweaked her nose, making her smile again. "But even den, no matter where you are, where you go, what you do, you better know dat your Daddy always loves you."  
  
_She closed her eyes, and silent tears slid from beneath fluttering lids, the years not dulling their edge.  
_  
"Even if I eat the whole jar of cookies?" she asked with a grin, used to this game, too.  
  
He nodded.  
  
"And even if I beat up Jean-Luc?"  
  
"Even den," he agreed. "Dough you better expect to be gettin' a butt-whippin' of your own."  
  
She searched her mind, tried to think of something new, something she'd never asked. What was the worst thing she could ever do?  
  
_Be responsible for his death.  
_  
"Even if I kill somebody?"  
  
He blinked, shook his head in surprise. "Dat's a strange question. You not t'inking 'bout killin' anyone, are you, Rinny?"  
  
She shook her head, solemn. "No, Daddy." But she couldn't think of anything worse. That was the worst. If she did that… would he really still love her? "Would you, Daddy?"  
  
_Did you love me when you died to save my life?  
_  
"Lord, child," he said with a surprised, rough laugh, smoothing her hair back from her face. He cut a surreptitious glance left, then right. "Your momma hear stuff like dat an' it's gonna be curtains fo' your Daddy. She goin' to t'ink I been puttin' bad ideas in your head."  
  
"I won't tell her," she said and held up one hand. "Swear. And I won't kill anyone, either. I just wondered."  
  
_Do you still love me now?  
_  
He smiled then, touched her cheek, and his fingers were so large, so gentle and smooth as they brushed against her skin. "Of course, cherie. I love you always, no matter what you do. You, Jean-Luc, an' your momma, too." He pulled her close in a hug, and she threw her tiny arms around his neck, holding him tight. He smelled like smoke and leather and comfort and all the safety of home.  
  
_Irineé blinked, tears turning hot with sudden emotion as they streamed from her eyes._  
  
"No matter what," he whispered.  
_  
He doesn't remember us. Doesn't even know he has children.  
  
_"Always."  
_  
Why did you forget us, dad?  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Magnus sat and fumed in silence at the image on the commlink screen.  
  
"So what you are saying… Senator Lensherr… is that your mind has been moved into a new body that is an exactly cloned, younger duplicate of your previous body?" Senator Alba's political aide raised his brows in polite disbelief. The man, Mr. Lavine by name, had been Magnus' junior by better than thirty years two days ago. Now he carried a well-preserved decade on Magnus' countenance—which, Magnus supposed, accounted for some of the patronization he was receiving.  
  
"Yes. That is exactly what I am saying."  
  
"I see. And is Senator LeBeau available to corroborate this story?"  
  
"She is not," he replied, tone terse, words clipped.  
  
"Has she been indisposed by some strange mutant circumstance as well?"  
  
Magnus clenched his fingers against the console, and struggled to keep his patience. "She has had a family emergency."  
  
Immediately, the man's expression changed, the too-polite mocking tone leaving his voice. "I'm sorry to hear that. I hope her children are well."  
  
For a moment, Magnus was tempted to answer the man's unasked question.  
  
_Oh no, her children are fine. It's just that her husband has recently returned from the dead after a seven year hiatus.  
_  
He bit down on the temptation and hoped that the expression on his face would pass as a smile rather than a snarl.  
  
"I will pass along your concern, Mr. Lavine. May we return to the situation at hand?"  
  
"Yes. And unfortunately, it is something of a situation. You do resemble… your former self, but I'm not at all certain the Council will be able to continue to recognize you. There is no protocol, no precedent or laws that decree how such an occurrence should be handled."  
  
"Surely there must be some way you can verify my identity?"  
  
The man hesitated, then nodded. "Perhaps, yes. But that will still only carry so far."  
  
"What are you saying?" Magnus asked, eyes narrowing, storm clouds gathering on his brow.  
  
The man cleared his throat, straightened. "Senator Lensherr, I sympathize with your situation, but you must understand how this will look to everyone. Identity confirmation or not, they will never understand. These things simply do not happen to normal people."  
  
"Mr. Lavine," he said, voice rising with dangerous thunder. "With all due respect, we are not 'normal people'. That is the entire focus of this debate."  
  
Lavine nodded once. "I understand. That is, unfortunately, exactly the problem. You understand as well as I do that the government is foundering, trying to rebuild in bits and pieces. The new system does not work exactly like the old one. We are lucky to have any sort of system at all. Government members are in short supply these days, and not as well distributed as they ought to be."  
  
"Tell me, Mr. Lavine," Rogue said as she strode into the room, face stern, body held regal and high. "Is that a fancy way of leadin' up to sayin' 'we're screwed'?"  
  
"Senator LeBeau," the man greeted, rising a bit taller in his seat.   
  
It was funny, Magnus thought, the respect they gave to Rogue despite the fact that she was less professional and more passionate than most politicians. She had a certain way of working under their skin and touching their cold, corporate hearts to make them listen. It was the same bit of magic that had won her his heart over the last decade or more, and Magnus' breath caught in his throat as he turned to look at her, memories clouding his mind. Two days… two days and an eternity ago. How quickly things could change.  
  
"I was given to understand that you were beset by a family emergency."  
  
"Ah still am. So you'll have to forgive me if Ah'm a little rough around the edges today, Mr. Lavine, and hopefully you can understand why Ah want to put this matter to rest in a hurry."  
  
"Yes," he agreed. "But unfortunately, it may not be that simple. Given Senator Lensherr's miraculous… circumstance, things may become a great deal more complicated than they already were."  
  
"But you're not sure of the legalities?"  
  
He hesitated, drew his shoulders up and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. "No. Not as yet. But the legalities of the situation may be irrelevant compared to the impact such a dramatic change is certain to have on the public."  
  
Rogue nodded. "One thing at a time, Mr. Lavine. Let's figure out if we have a leg to stand on before we go worryin' about the public perception. If we can't legally continue the process then there's no need to alarm the public at all. Ah'll get Theresa Cassidy on the books, see what she can find out. Ah expect ya'll will be doin' the same. We don't have your resources, but we'll do what we can to help resolve the problem."  
  
"You are aware that the voice of the people will hold sway over the Council and the President's final decision on mutant status?"  
  
"Ah am," she replied, face calm and composed.  
  
He nodded. "I will advise Senator Alba to take the matter under consideration and continue negotiations. But be advised, the bottom line may be that, legally, we simply cannot reconcile the matter due to this unprecedented change. If that is so, then Mr. Lensherr may have to petition to become recognized as a Senator again, as he will likely be regarded as an entirely different person from the previous Senator Lensherr."  
  
Petitioning. Paperwork. Years and miles of red tape. No one was elected to office anymore; there simply weren't enough people. Petitioning was a fancy way of saying "applying for the job".  
  
"We'll do what we have ta, even if it means startin' over. We're not goin' away, Mr. Lavine, and somehow, we have to find a way to live together."  
  
Lavine nodded again. "I will convene with Senator Alba at the soonest opportunity. I'll be in touch."  
  
The commlink screen flickered and went black, and there was nothing but the sound of silence between the two of them for a long moment. Rogue stared at the dark screen and Magnus listened to her breathe, the quiet seeming to crawl over his skin like electricity.  
  
"I never could understand why you wanted me to head our Council," he finally spoke into the gulf between them. "You are much better at handling these people than I will ever be."  
  
A weary sigh left her, and she folded her arms, cupped her hands around her elbows. "You're the brains of this outfit, Magnus. Ah'm the heart." She paused, considered a moment, then turned to him with a faint smile that made him think of better times. "Besides, it's good for you to have ta talk to other people."  
  
It was a good moment, a comfortable moment—one that spoke of many years spent side by side in a multitude of situations just like these—and it made Magnus' heart ache, because nothing was the same between them now.   
  
"Sabiné…"  
  
"Don't," she said, and looked away, eyes closing as if to deny the pain he suddenly saw in her face. The tenuous moment of reprieve destroyed, she let the motion of her head turn her whole body, and her feet carried her to the door.  
  
"I'm sorry," he said as she reached the threshold, needing to say something before she was gone.  
  
She paused in the doorway, her head bowed. "It's not your fault, Magnus." She wrapped her arms around herself and he could see the way her fingers dug deep into her sides. "It's nobody's fault."  
  
He watched her as she moved from the doorway, and as she walked down the hall, he had the sudden, painful sense that she was walking out of his life forever. He was a proud man, a stubborn man, and even in the face of everything that had happened, some small part of him had harbored hope… hope that she could still be part of his life, perhaps even that she would still love him. With the turning of her back, that errant indulgence crumbled like a foundation shattered beneath him, and he spread his hands out over the console to brace himself against the sudden truth that hit him like the weight of the world.  
  
Two days and a lifetime ago. He had thought only moments before that nothing was the same between them.   
  
And now he knew that nothing ever would be again.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Logan?" Jean asked as she sat up, blinking as if she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing.  
  
"Where am I… how did I…?" She stopped, looked around, and finally turned to him, her lovely face perplexed. "Didn't I just leave New York?"  
  
Logan chewed on the end of his cheroot and shook his head. "Depends on what you mean by 'just', darlin'. If 'just left' means six and half years or so ago, then yeah, you just left."  
  
She stared at him, the shake of her head almost imperceptible. "What?"  
  
"You left from New York almost seven years ago, darlin'. At least, last I saw."  
  
"But I just…" her gaze fell away, confused as her mind raced to catch up with the information he was giving her. "I just said goodbye to you," she said, her deep green eyes searching his.  
  
"That's the last thing you remember?"  
  
She thought hard for a moment, then nodded, once, slowly. "Remy's funeral was the day before. And then I left… went into space… and then…" she stopped, frowned. Fragments of stars and lightning rushed through her mind, but nothing else came. "I don't remember."  
  
"Lot o' that goin' around, seems like," he said and struck a match to light his cheroot. Blue-gray smoke coiled around his face and obscured his features from her, but she could still feel his eyes on her, thoughtful and penetrating.  
  
She narrowed a suspicious gaze on him and frowned. "What do you mean?"  
  
"No offense, Jeannie, but you've been alive an' dead more than anyone else I know. I'm just wonderin' if you're really you this time." Cool as a cucumber as he tapped an ash from the end of his repulsive cheroot, maddening and infuriating. Yeah. He was Logan, all right.  
  
"Of course I'm me," she said, her voice on the edge of snapping at him. "The only me that ever was, remember?"   
  
"Yeah?" he asked, voice casual as he looked her over, a smirk playing about his lips. "Prove it."  
  
And suddenly she was all too keenly aware of how close she was to him, how small and warm the room was.  
  
_I hafta make sure that you're real.  
_  
She shivered—not all together unpleasantly—and as she drove the thought away, his parting words came back to her. "Some things, you gotta take on faith."  
  
"Well I guess that'll hafta do," he said with a grin.  
  
"The question is: how did I get here?"  
  
"Actually, we were hopin' you might be able to answer that one."  
  
"Damn," she swore softly beneath her breath.   
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Remy opened one heavy eyelid and fought back a wave of nausea as the room swirled and came slowly into focus. Two faces, fresh with youth and fraught with pain stared at him with shocked green eyes that seemed… familiar somehow. He licked his lips, found them dry as sandpaper and tried again, his voice creaking from his throat. "You two a little young for nurse duty, non?"  
  
Wide eyes only blinked back at him, too surprised to speak, and he heaved an inward, weary sigh.   
  
"Do… do you know who we are?" the young girl asked, her face so open and pleading that Remy wished he had the answer.  
  
"Non, petite. I wish I did."  
  
A muscle in the boy's face tightened. "Are you sure?" he asked. "You really don't remember?"  
  
Remy shook his head. "I'm sorry."  
  
The young boy's face turned bright red with sudden anger, and his eyes flashed an even deeper shade of crimson as his temper took hold of him. "How could you forget about us?" he demanded, his voice so vehement and pained that Remy wondered exactly who this boy was.  
  
"Jean-Luc!" the girl said, and turned on the boy with such ferocity the Remy was momentarily taken aback. "You know he didn't do it on purpose!"  
  
"All I know is that we've waited seven years for him to come back, Rinny, and now he's here and he doesn't even remember us." The boy's hands clenched into fists and a vein stood out in sharp relief from his temple. His eyes found Remy's, and Remy trembled at the naked emotion he saw there.   
  
"I'm sorry I don't--" Remy began.  
  
"Shut up!" the boy shouted, about to shake apart with rage and sorrow. "You should have just stayed dead!"  
  
"Jean-Luc!" the girl gasped, her face turning pale white.  
  
The boy spun away, heading for the door, and the girl followed him, her voice sharp and reprimanding as she shouted his name. The world seemed separated from Remy by thin layers of gauze, everything very faint, shadowy and far away.  
  
"I was… dead?"  
  
The door to the room flew open, and Rogue appeared, chest heaving, eyes bright. "Jean-Luc! Irineé! You two shouldn't be in here alone--"  
  
"It's all your fault!" Jean-Luc cried, and his voice was so loud, so filled with outrage that Remy found himself unable to block it out. He raised his wondering eyes to the scene that was unfolding and saw the boy just a few feet from the woman, legs spread wide, hands still clenched at his sides. "If you had stopped him that night! Kept him from going after Sinister, none of this would have ever happened!"  
  
The beautiful woman Remy had met when he'd first woken flinched from the words like a physical blow, her face crumpling. "Jean-Luc, you know I did the best I could--"  
  
"If you had, he wouldn't have died! Maybe then we'd have at least one person around who cared about us!"  
  
"Jean-Luc!" the woman recoiled as if she'd been slapped, all the color draining from her face. "You know I've always cared--"  
  
"Yeah mom," Jean-Luc agreed, his tone dripping acid. "You've been great caring about the Council, Magnus, the X-Men, even Dad's ghost. Everything else but us! And now we've finally got him back and he doesn't even remember us!"  
  
The woman shook her head, wordless, and Jean-Luc gathered himself in a tight ball of anger and took a step forward, eyes blazing up at his mother. "At least he's got an excuse for forgetting about us, mom," he said, his tone going deathly quiet. "What's yours?"  
  
The boy's mother clasped her hands over her heart, and Remy thought he could hear it break from all the way across the room.  
  
Jean-Luc stalked out, and the girl hesitated, putting one hand on the woman's arm. "I'm sorry, mom," she whispered. She looked out the door, then back at her mother's face as if torn. "I'll… go after him."  
  
The woman stood there, eyes slack and dazed, and Remy wondered if she'd even heard the girl's words.  
  
There was a long moment of silence after the girl's departure that left Remy feeling squirmy and awkward, despite the fact that he was fairly sure the woman had forgotten his presence for the moment.  
  
"Chere?" he ventured, and hoped she wouldn't explode on him.  
  
She pressed a hand to her face, rubbed at her eyes and pushed at her face, the vacant look slowly leaving her.  
  
"I don't know what just happened, but I get de feelin' it's a family matter."  
  
She drew herself up straight and nodded, sniffing once.  
  
Still, she said nothing, and Remy twisted in the wind, feeling lost and uncomfortable. "I would have left, but…" he said with an attempt at humor, looking down at his bedridden body to finish the sentence.  
  
"It's… don't worry…" she whispered, as if she didn't quite know how to answer. Her emerald eyes were wide, rimmed with tears and ringed with sorrow and shock. Looking into them, Remy found himself overwhelmed with the urge to comfort her.  
  
"I suddenly get de feeling I never could resist a femme when she's cryin'," he half-muttered, and tried a smile. He tilted his head to the side, studying her, trying to understand what was happening around him. He still didn't know where he was, how he'd gotten here, who any of these people were… and yet, the look in her eyes drove all those thoughts from him.  
  
"Did… somet'in bad happen to deir Daddy?" he guessed, having gotten at least that much from the conversation. Maybe if she talked about it… and hell, it wasn't exactly like he had anywhere to be, or like he'd be going anywhere soon, given the way his body still felt.  
  
"Yes," she said. Her eyes locked onto his, deep with more emotions than he could name. He found himself mesmerized by the intensity of her gaze, felt as if she were trying to tell him something with the weight of her eyes alone. "He died."  
  
"Oh," he said, voice soft and surprised. He felt sorry for having asked, but he also felt something else… a faint tingle of thought that wouldn't quite come into focus. In that moment, he was more aware of the blank canvas of his mind than ever as the words echoed in his head, trying to form a pattern of understanding.  
  
He blinked, and then his eyes widened as he looked at her, the tumblers of his mind falling at last into place, unlocking a small piece of understanding.  
  
_You should have just stayed dead!  
_  
"Oh," he breathed.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Magnus strode into the living room and glanced at the television screen as he passed it by. A local newswoman's face loomed on the screen, her features distorted by static and snow.  
  
"Rumors still abound concerning the Mutant Affairs Council meeting two days ago, when the mutant called Magneto, a well-known former terrorist, suddenly collapsed in the middle of--"  
  
He turned the power button off with a thrust of his mind, and the newswoman's face disappeared.  
  
"Father?" Wanda asked, her entire face a question as she turned to him. "Don't you even want to know what they're saying about you?"  
  
"I already know what they are saying," he said, sitting down and running a hand through his hair. Longer now, it felt strange beneath his fingers, and he felt somehow mildly ridiculous as he faced her; his daughter, now more than ten years his senior. He wondered if she felt as foolish calling him "father" as he felt being called that in this body.  
  
"Magnus?" Colossus asked as he sat forward on the sofa. "What is wrong?"  
  
"I need to speak with you, Piotr." He paused and watched the larger man tense, took a deep breath. He would never get used to this, not if he lived forever. "I fear I bring bad news."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"It concerns Kitty."  
  
Piotr stiffened, and Wanda laid a hand upon the large man's shoulder.  
  
Magnus went on, speaking the words with efficiency and regret, and when at last Piotr collapsed, broken with disbelief, it was Wanda who caught him, held him in her arms.  
  
If what they had been given to understand turned out to be true, Piotr would need all the support he could get.  
  
And yet, he couldn't quite keep a tendril of jealousy from him as it crept in and twined around his heart.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"…and then we went back New York and… b-buried your memory," Rogue stuttered. She wiped at tear-filled eyes that had barely met his throughout the telling of the long story and took a deep, shuddery breath. Remy was silent, his face balanced precariously on the edge of composure, and she wondered what he was thinking, what he was feeling. She could reach out, steal a look inside his mind… She dug her fingers deep into the muscle of her thigh instead; let the pain calm the mad pounding of her heart.  
  
After a long moment, Remy shook his head, red-black eyes distant and troubled. "Dat's… dat's a lot to take in, chere."  
  
"Ah know."  
  
"I… I did all dis for you? An' for… de children?" he asked after another long pause.  
  
"Yes. Ah didn't want to tell you this way, but…" She shook her head and raised her shoulders in a helpless gesture, tears threatening to spill over again.  
  
"I must have… loved you all very much, non?" He twisted his neck to look at her, and there was such a lost and gentle look about him as she met his eyes that she could only nod and clamp a hand over her mouth to keep a sob from escaping her.  
  
Then his head lolled against the pillow, and that face she so loved and adored turned from her with a sigh. "I'm sorry, chere. I don't remember any of dis." His voice had changed, gone distant and strange again. Red pupils stared off into the distance, seeing nothing, remembering nothing, and she suddenly felt as if she were in the room with a complete stranger.  
  
_One touch of mah hand…_ she flexed her fingers, dug her nails deep into her palm.  
  
It wasn't fair. So many nights, crying and yearning for him, offering God any trade He would take to have just one more moment with him. And now, as she looked at him, her heart so filled with love that it hurt to breathe, she wanted nothing more than to sink into his arms and feel him stroke her hair, hear his voice with all its silky, gritty thread, feel it wrap around her, hold her and keep her.  
  
And she couldn't. even. touch him.  
  
Skin she had burned to touch for years lay within inches, its familiar landscape remembered on the tips of her fingers. The line of his jaw, the smirking curve of his mouth that she had dreamed of kissing on more nights than she could name, lay before her with the lush promise of hope. She only had to lean over, let her hair brush against his face, let her lips touch his…  
  
"I need some time… to t'ink about it all," he was saying, voice and gaze still distant, still removed from her.  
  
It was torture. And some, small, unnamed part of her wondered if she might not deserve it.  
  
"Time…" she echoed with a slow nod, her voice as hollow as her soul felt.  
  
"I'd like a moment alone, if you don't mind," he added, still not turning to look at her.  
  
She managed another nod, and held on to her composure, somehow, until she made it out the door. It shut behind her, and with that sound of finality, the thin thread that had been holding her heart together snapped and fell free with an unraveling that left her gasping on her knees.  
  
She loved him with everything she had, loved him beyond life itself… and still, she wondered if death had not been kinder than this.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_"Scanning for target…"  
  
_Dr. Hayes shifted with impatience. It was a perfunctory scan—they already knew their target still lived—but a necessary procedure.  
_  
"…biorhythm not found."_  
  
She stopped breathing. Renaldo was looking at her, eyes questioning.   
  
"Run it again," she whispered. "Check for anomalies and similar patterns. Maybe the program is off. We need to be sure."  
  
_"Scanning for target…"  
  
"…similar biorhythm found."_  
  
"It's the same pattern…" Renaldo said with a slow shake of his head. "Just a few minor differences… but they're very strange."  
  
"Strange?" she asked as she rose and walked over behind him, trying to get a better look at the screen.  
  
"I don't know how else to describe it. I've… I've never seen any readings like this. I'd almost need a physical examination to be able to figure it out." He pushed a few buttons, and the biorhythm data coalesced into a glowing pattern. "This is our target," he said, pointing at the image. "And here's what I found." A second pattern emerged, and with a few clicks, he overlaid it atop the first.  
  
Red energy patterns swirled, their lines pulsing and shifting in a cyclic rhythm. The second pattern mimicked the first in almost every way… except…  
  
"What in God's name is that?" Dr. Hayes asked, pointing a small spot on the screen. It was miniscule, but distinct, and it glowed bright red—so bright it was almost pink. It glittered and turned like an eerie ghost inside the second pattern like a wheel within a wheel, seeming to pulse and shift of its own accord.  
  
"I don't know," Renaldo said, and shook his head in awe.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Magnus sat before the complex's internal speaker system, fingers pressed against his temples to ward off a burgeoning headache as he considered.  
  
They all had to meet, had to discuss the status of everything. His political status, Remy's condition, Jean's sudden, violent arrival, the situation with the Hellfire Club. The crises just kept on coming, no matter what they did, and though he had been eager for a tangible battle only days ago, he now found himself weary at the prospect. The emotional upheaval had left him feeling like an uprooted tree, exposed and confused, roots and limbs splayed in every direction.  
  
_Well, I suppose I could always go back to world domination_, he thought with a grimace.  
  
The pain seemed to shift in his temple, pounding with more insistence, and he gave a sharp gasp of surprise.  
  
The ice-pick in his brain abated a little, and when he could think again, he reached for the intercom button. He never gave the headache a second thought. Most likely it was residual pain from Madelyne's attack, or perhaps an adjustment to his new body. Nothing to be concerned about, in the wake of all he had to deal with.  
  
He forgot it. And beneath the surface of his mind, a dark and slithering shadow curled, and bided its time.  
  



	10. Chapter 9: Entropy Pt 2

_Everyone's watching you   
Do you keep your eyes down on the ground?  
Everything's falling apart,   
Do the feelings just keep going round?  
  
__Talking is painful here,   
Will they always want you to appear?   
Because everything's falling apart   
So feel me   
And feel free   
  
__You can't stay Fallen Forever   
You can't live with your back to the wall   
Why pray when there's nobody out there?   
And there's so much time to fall   
  
            ~Fallen, Mesh  
  
_  
CHAPTER 9: ENTROPY, PT. 2  
  
"This isn't right, Logan," Jean hissed as they walked through the halls of the complex toward the Briefing Room. "I'm a telepath; our memories aren't supposed to get scrambled unless something catastrophic happens."  
  
Logan gave her a bemused, sidelong glance. "Somethin' pretty big happened, Jeannie. That was one helluva light show you put on."  
  
"I know…" she sighed, frustrated. "It's just maddening."  
  
"It'll come, darlin', give it time."  
  
They walked in silence for a moment, and then Jean tilted her head at him, a strand of fiery hair falling forward into her face. "Logan… I know it's been seven years for you, but it's been an eye-blink for me… and I can tell, something's different between us. You seem… different somehow."  
  
"Lots o' things're different, darlin'," he said, voice gruff.  
  
She thought for a moment, pressed her lips together, not quite willing to ask, but not quite able to help herself. "Did something happen? Is it… Ororo?"  
  
He stopped walking, turned to look at her, dark eyes veiled. "We split about six years ago."  
  
"Oh. I…"  
  
"Water under the bridge, Jeannie, like a lot o' other things."  
  
_Like you and me?_ she wondered, but didn't dare ask. "What happened?"  
  
"She felt like she was second best. Didn't like it," he said with a simplicity that was somehow graceful despite his terse tone.  
  
"Logan, I'm sorry."  
  
"Don't be," he said, eyes never wavering from hers. "She made her choice."  
  
She nodded and met his gaze. "What about you? Did you make your choice?"  
  
"A body can get used to anything, given enough time." He shrugged, the gesture rough and unpunctuated by emotion. "Even lovin' someone who don't love you back."  
  
Did he mean Ororo… or did he mean…  
  
She stared into his eyes, feeling that old, undeniable magnetic pull between them.  
  
"Logan," she whispered, and raised one hand, reaching out to touch him.  
  
He caught her hand, placed it gently back down at her side. His expression was torn, pained, but he only shook his head. "Not now, darlin'. Between Magnus, Rogue and Remy, we got enough heartache in this place to fill a dozen Harlequin romances."  
  
She nodded, fingers numb, face hot. Stupid… why had she…?  
  
_Magnus…_ the name echoed in the corridors of her mind, touching on something… something nebulous and undefined.  
  
"Magnus!" she exclaimed, her eyes lighting up. "Whatever happened, why I'm here, it has something to do with him."  
  
Logan frowned, squinted up at her from beneath furrowed brows. "What?"  
  
"I… I don't know," she admitted, her face falling. She chewed on her lower lip, trying in vain to remember. It had been so close, just a moment ago…  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The briefing was painful, but mercifully short. Between discussing Remy and Kitty's current status and the status with the government, there hadn't been a happy face in the entire room.  
  
But then, Rogue thought, when had there ever been?  
  
She stood near the Blackbird, watching the small group of mutants Magnus had selected to go on the mission to investigate the Hellfire Club board the jet. She didn't exactly know why she was here… just a feeling. A need to say goodbye.  
  
But that was silly, wasn't it? He wasn't going to be gone long, and even if he were… well, it shouldn't matter now, should it?  
  
But it did.  
  
Remy was her life… but he didn't even remember her. And the truth was, she still cared for Magnus. You didn't spend seven years side by side with someone in every way, shape and form save lover and not come to care for them. But how much, exactly, did she care? And how much of an effect was it going to have on whatever was to come?  
  
Magnus entered the hangar, eyes registering surprise as he saw her. He walked to where she stood, and she glanced around, making sure the rest of the group had boarded.  
  
"I didn't expect to see you here," he said. His voice was careful, but his eyes… oh, his eyes. It almost made her angry, to see the tenderness in them and the hurt that lurked just beneath.  
  
"Ah wanted to… say goodbye," she said, lifting one shoulder in an uncertain half-shrug. It sounded weak to her ears, and she knew it must have sounded even weaker to him, who had no reason to expect her there.   
  
"Ah… Ah felt like, with you leaving all the sudden in the middle of… everything… Ah," she struggled with the words and glanced down at her feet, suddenly self-conscious. "Ah just wanted to let you know that Ah…" She took a deep breath, forced herself to meet his eyes. "Ah do care about you."  
  
"I know," he said, and gave her a pained smile. "But I also know where your heart lies."  
  
She nodded feeling numb. "He doesn't remember me."  
  
He reached out, and she felt the ghost of a breeze caress her face, his fingers not quite daring. "He will. No one could forget you for very long."  
  
"Ah don't know what's gonna happen," she said, looking up at him with sudden anxiety. "Ah don't know that even if he gets his memory back that things'll ever be like they were. All Ah know is right now Ah feel like Ah'm torn in two, and no matter how much Ah keep tellin' myself Ah should be focusin' on mah own life, you're still here in mah heart. An' Ah know Ah shouldn't be tellin' you all this, but Ah feel like Ah have to let you know so you won't think..." she trailed off and lifted her shoulders, unable to complete the thought.  
  
"That you are a horrible person?" he finished, and gave her a sad smile.  
  
She nodded, her eyes brimming with tears.  
  
"I could never think that," he answered and he was so warm, so sincere and loving despite his obvious pain that she felt her heart rise in her throat.  
  
"You've been the best thing in all of this," she said suddenly, her voice catching. And before she could think to stop herself, she rose on her toes and kissed him gently on the lips.  
  
"Be careful," she said as she drew back, giving him one last, long look. Then she hurried from the room without a backward glance, fearing that if she looked back over her shoulder, she'd do something even more incredibly stupid than what she'd already done.  
  
She didn't see him standing there, fingertips pressed against his lips, eyes mournful and surprised as he watched her go.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
It took him a few minutes to gather himself, to put his emotions back in their proper place before boarding the Blackbird.  
  
_Upset. She was just upset and in a moment of high emotion. Don't hold on to hope, you foolish old man_, he chided himself.  
  
Piotr and Wanda sat near each other, their despair almost palpable, and Logan navigated the plane, Jean at his side. Madelyne sat near the back of the jet, her face stony and sulking. Magnus had been reluctant to bring them both, but he feared leaving the two red-headed telepaths in the same place for too long without his interference even more than he dreaded the inevitable bickering he would have to endure.  
  
Divided and torn, confused and sad as they all were, and he was the only thing holding this group together right now.  
  
His hand went unconsciously to his temple, and rubbed at the spike of pain there.  
  
He only hoped he had enough strength to keep them together.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
In the Arizona complex, Ororo hesitated outside the door to Remy's room, then slowly pushed it open.  
  
Goddess. Alive and awake, whole before her very eyes. She still could not believe it.  
  
"You not goin' to attack me if I don't remember you, are you chere?" he asked with a semblance of his smirking grin, but she could hear the trepidation that lurked beneath his teasing tone. How difficult this must be for him. Even more difficult than it was for the rest of them.  
  
"Remy… it is so good to see you alive and well, my friend."  
  
"Not dat I'm not happy to see you, chere, tall, dark and beautiful as you are… but do I know you?"  
  
"We were good friends, once."  
  
"Just friends?" he asked, and arched his brows suggestively.  
  
"Yes," she replied with a reluctant smile she couldn't seem to hold back. "Just friends." She thought back to when they'd first met, of their weeks alone together that had suddenly become much more meaningful when she'd been progressed back to her natural age and become a woman again. "But there but for the grace of the Goddess…"  
  
"Too bad for you, chere," he said and dropped her a wink, his confidence returning as he saw that she was not angry. "You don't know what you missin'."  
  
She stifled a laugh. "From what I understand, _you_ do not know what I would be missing."  
  
"Well," he said with a wide grin. "Some t'ings, you just know."  
  
She shook her head and marveled at him. "You haven't changed at all."  
  
"Yeah?" he asked with an insouciant tilt of his head, lazy smile still playing about his lips. "Dat's good to know. But I'm afraid you got de advantage over me, chere. I don't even know your name."  
  
"Ororo," she said, suddenly feeling strange. "Storm to my teammates."  
  
"Dat's pretty," he said with a nod. "Stormy it is, den."  
  
And this time she did chuckle. She couldn't help but indulge him; she had missed him so.  
  
"No. You have not changed one bit, my friend."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The great hall was built almost exactly as Magnus remembered it, white marble stretching up into cathedral ceilings and elaborately carved arches. All the X-Men stopped, took a long, breathless look at their surroundings.  
  
Logan gave a low whistle and shifted an unlit cheroot around in his mouth. "Musta cost them a pretty penny to get this place back up to snuff."  
  
"Who has this kind of money?" Wanda wondered, her tone hushed.  
  
"It's exactly like I remember it," Jean said, and shook her head in amazement.  
  
"I guess you would know." Madelyne sniffed and deliberately looked everywhere except Jean.  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jean asked as she turned on the woman, red hair flowing around her angry face.  
  
Madelyne shrugged and shot her a nasty grin. "You did spend some time here as the resident Black Queen."  
  
"I wouldn't go throwin' stones, if I were you," Logan said, and quirked a crooked, humorless grin Madelyne's way. "Goblin Queen."  
  
"Several of the X-Men have been members here, myself included," Magnus broke in, heading off the fight before it could get started. "There have been times when the Hellfire Club's goals have aligned with our own, let us not forget."  
  
"I'm so glad to hear you say that," came a voice, soft and teasing, and a moment later, a woman stepped through the wall and phased into existence.  
  
"By the white wolf," Piotr whispered.  
  
"My God," said Magnus, looking her up and down.  
  
"'Round here, they just call me 'my Queen'," Kitty corrected with a wink.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_Jean-Luc?_ Irinee asked, speaking up inside her brother's mind. _I didn't get to talk to you before the briefing… are you…?_  
  
_Don't_, he said, turning his face from her as she entered his room. _I'm—I'm fine._  
  
She stopped, took in his tear-stained face, and was silent for a long time.  
  
_He doesn't remember us_, her brother sent after a while, mental voice harsh and angry.  
  
_They said he doesn't remember **anything**. The only reason we know as much as we do is because Madelyne did a psi-scan on him. She can't touch his memory, but she doesn't need to. She can see in his surface thoughts that he can't touch his own memories.  
_  
_I know! It still isn't fair that we finally get dad back and he doesn't even remember us._ Jean-Luc rolled his eyes in anger and set his jaw. _At least **he** has an excuse. He lost his memory… somehow._  
  
Irineé sighed, tried to shut away her frustration with the whole situation. _Mom hasn't forgotten about us. Why did you say those things to her?_  
  
_Because…_ he dodged his sister's penetrating, emerald eyes and shrugged. _Because ever since Dad died… she's been… different.__ And you know it!_ He added, his mental voice gaining strength.  
  
_She was sad for a long time_, Irineé agreed, _but she never stopped loving us._  
  
_No,_ Jean-Luc agreed quietly after a moment, his anger fading back a notch. _But she did forget about us.   
  
No she didn't. She's just been busy. Trying to do things to make the world better for all of us. She loves us. I feel it like a caress every time she mindlinks with us.  
  
I know she loves us, _Jean-Luc said, and sighed. _I just… without dad around… she's always busy or it's always X-Men stuff. Things have never felt right._  
  
Irineé nodded._ I know. But it was hard for her, losing dad.  
  
Hard for us, too!  
  
Yeah, but we have each other. You know as well as I do when dad died, mom lost all her support. Magnus filled that empty space he left, a little, but never enough.  
  
And now that Magnus could, now that he finally was, dad's back. _Jean-Luc's mouth curved in a cynical smirk that his father had long ago patented. _Funny how life's like that, when you're an X-Man. You never really get what you want; you just get more and more taken away._  
  
_Don't be morbid_, Irineé said with an exasperated look at her brother.   
  
She paused, reconsidered his face, so like her own, and her expression softened. So much talking since their father's return, so much explaining and guessing. He was just confused. They both were.  
  
_I think I'm still in shock, _she said, letting the strident tone leave her voice._  
  
_Jean-Luc snorted a laugh and wiped an errant tear from his eye. _Yeah. Me too_  
  
She closed her eyes, her brother's tears of confusion mirrored in her own eyes. Her father's face drifted inside her mind, strange and familiar all at once. Who are you? she wondered quietly, a thousand questions swirling inside her, each one aching as it pulsed in her heart and climbed to her throat. What am I supposed to feel? What am I supposed to do? Cry? Scream? Sulk? Leap for joy? How am I supposed to help mom and Jean-Luc when I'm so scared and confused? You're my Daddy, you're supposed have all the answers.  
  
_At least he's not dead because of us, anymore, _Jean-Luc said, voice hard and self-deprecating._  
  
_Irineé took a deep, shuddering breath._ You know better than that. He did what he thought he had to do to save us. He couldn't have known what would happen._  
  
That's what she told herself, practically every day of her life, but late at night, between the drift and dreams, guilt had a way of slipping in like an old friend, curling comfortably around her bones and making its home there. She said it for her brother, to comfort him, but she didn't believe it in her heart.  
  
Jean-Luc shook his head and didn't respond for a long time, and she wondered if he'd sensed her doubt in her own words.   
  
_What do we do now?_ he asked at last.  
  
_I don't know_, she said and sighed. She moved into the room, sat down next to her brother and took his hand in hers.  
  
_But we'll figure it out… together, just like always.  
_  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Champagne?" the Black Queen asked and turned, snapping the fingers of one leather-gloved hand. A servant dutifully appeared, bottle in hand, and another trailed just behind with a tray of glasses.   
  
"After all," Kitty said, looking at them with a bright smile that could have belonged to a shark or an angel. "This is cause for celebration. The reunion of old friends and all." She paused, looked at Magnus, and blinked. "Magnus, you look… great. You haven't aged a day. In fact, you've de-aged quite a few decades. What's your secret?"  
  
"Katya…" Piotr stepped forward, still looking stunned. "What… what happened to you?"  
  
"Why Piotr, darling, whatever do you mean?" she asked with a smile, taking a champagne flute from one of the servants.  
  
Still off-balance, Piotr seemed to regain some of his footing with her words, his face changing from slack surprise to an expression of anger. "I mean _this_, Katya. This is not you. You have been gone for seven years without a word, and we come to find you here? Where have you been? What has happened to you? Why did you…" he deflated as the winds of anger left his sails, leaving him weary and defeated. "Why did you leave me?"  
  
"Aw, Piotr. Still carrying a torch? How sweet," she said, and flashed him a smile. "And is that a torch-bearer I see with you?" she asked, craning her head to look at Wanda.  
  
Wanda turned bright red, but Logan spoke before she could even begin to form the words to respond.   
  
"Cute, darlin'. Seems like the years've been worse fer the wear. The Kitty I knew would've never acted like this."  
  
"Logan," Piotr turned to him, his face a sad landscape wrought with desperation. "Please… is it her?"  
  
Logan nodded once, lowering his eyes. "Sorry Petey. Her scent's exactly the same."  
  
"Kitty," Magnus implored, stepping forward to meet her. "You invited us, we came. Surely you had more in mind than tormenting us."  
  
"Of course," she said, moving to a seat at the table. Spreading the length of her black cloak beneath her, she sat, and motioned for the others to do the same. "Join me in a drink?" she asked Magnus as he sat down across from her.   
  
He took the champagne flute she proffered without a word.  
  
"You're a little early for the ball, but oh well. I had a feeling you might decide to show up early, and better we do this now than spoil the party." She set her drink aside and put her elbows down on the table, leaning forward toward him. "I'd prefer to get right down to business, of course, but I can see I'm not going to get anywhere until I've explained all this, am I?"  
  
"Highly unlikely," Magnus agreed.  
  
Piotr had subsided to a chair near his side, and from the corner of his eye, Magnus could see the big man's fingers twitch as they worked nervously at the highly polished, white-lacquered wood. He had feared this would go badly. How bad it would get was still in question.  
  
Kitty paused, as if gathering her thoughts, and for the first time Magnus saw a trace of doubt in her arrogant, cold features.  
  
"It was the day after I'd left the team. I'd gotten a laptop and I was in the woods. I hacked into the government's systems with a wireless network card, and all of the sudden, this… thing comes pouring out of the laptop, through the connection, I guess. It was like nothing I'd ever seen. Liquid metal, could change shape in an instant. It was a robot, but it was alive, too. I tried to phase through it, short circuit its systems, and… well, it _was_ alive. It was using a technology that we hadn't even developed yet, back then, something called nanites. Living, sentient pieces of technology. Phasing through them flash fried my own nervous system…" She paused, shifted in her seat. "But something else happened, something I didn't understand then."  
  
"I was dying, and I called out. Your sister answered, Piotr," she said, glancing toward him.  
  
"Illyana?" he gasped. "She is still…?"  
  
"Alive? Yes." Kitty nodded. "Twisted and damned by the Limbo dimension she rules, but she's alive."  
  
Piotr's head dropped again, and Magnus wondered how many more emotional blows the man could take.  
  
"I was dying, and she saved me. There wasn't time to take me anywhere, so she took me to the only place she knew I could be healed; Limbo. It took a lot more time, magic and technology than she thought it would, but eventually I started to heal. And when I did, I realized that phasing through that robot had changed my body permanently. The nanite technology that powered it had merged with my own atoms, attached to every molecule in my body." She uttered a strange laugh. "I was never in any danger of dying. Given enough time, I would have healed on my own, but my system was in such a state of shock from the sudden change that my recovery was much slower than the robot's would have been."  
  
"What," Magnus asked, narrowing his eyes on her, hoping he wasn't understanding her correctly, "do you mean?"  
  
"I mean," Kitty replied, pulling a glove from her hand and holding it up, palm facing Magnus. "That I made out in the deal." As Magnus watched, her fingers lengthened, stretched long and taper thin, their tips curving into razor-sharp points that glittered with a touch of metal.  
  
The X-Men drew a collective breath, words failing.  
  
"It's not as good as the robot's technology," she said, her face straining with effort. "But then, I only got a small portion of them." Her fingers seemed to waver like a mirage, and then they snapped back into place; normal, feminine fingers flexing as she shook her head and drew a sharp breath.  
  
"It hurts," Magnus said, not asking.  
  
"Like the devil," Kitty agreed with a mirthless grin.  
  
"Katya," Piotr spoke up, his voice shaking, almost pleading. "You could have come back to us."  
  
"Could I?" she asked, staring at her hand. "New technology and few years spent in the hell of Limbo can change a girl."  
  
"Katya. We are X-Men. We are family. And I was… your beloved. We would never have turned our backs on you."  
  
She stared at him for a moment, considering those deep, soulful eyes for long, silent seconds that seemed to last forever. Then she turned away, began pulling the glove back on to her hand. "It doesn't matter now, does it?"  
  
"Of course it does!" Piotr exclaimed. "Katya, I would not turn my back on you even now."  
  
"Really Piotr?" she asked, eyes cutting into him with cold, merciless questing. "Would you cast off your new lover and take me back into your arms, even now?"  
  
"That's not a fair question, darlin'," Logan said, and his expression was not amused.  
  
Magnus turned his head, noted how Jean looked at Logan, how much of an impact his words had had on her, and silently sighed. Yes. That was all they needed now.  
  
"No," Kitty agreed with a slight incline of her head. "But then again, life's not very fair to any of us, is it Logan?" She drew herself up, glove back in place, and set her hands on the table before her. "I'm not coming back to the fold," she said, voice calm and detached, speaking to all of them now. "So you can drop that idea right now. I only asked you here because I have a proposition for you all. One that could prove very lucrative to both of us."  
  
"But Katya, I still do not understand--"  
  
Her eyes snapped back to Piotr, flashing fire now, her face contorted with anger. "I'm done with that life, Piotr. Understand _that_. I've had enough of the death, the tiny victories that mean nothing, the constant fighting and never gaining an inch of ground. I've had enough of losing all the people and things that I care about. Enough of being hated and hunted for what I am. Xavier had it all wrong—there's no way for mutants and humans to live together in this world. There's not even a way for _mutants_ to live with each other! So go ahead. Ask me to come back to the team so I can watch more people I care about get put in the ground. So I can spend every day of my life wondering if I'm going to be next and half-hoping I will be. Is that the kind of life you want for me?" she demanded.  
  
Piotr's mouth opened and closed, staggered by her vehement words. "But Katya, it is not like that. We have made steps, come farther than we have in years--"  
  
"It's not enough. It never was. You understood that once. And I understand it now."  
  
"I…" Piotr grasped for words for a moment, then slowly closed his mouth, dejected as he withdrew into himself. Everyone at the table shifted, uncomfortable in the silent moment, their hearts breaking for the noble warrior.  
  
"I fear I've been a terrible hostess," Kitty said, rising from her seat and regaining her composure. "And now the mood has been spoiled. I think maybe everything will look better in the morning, don't you?" she asked, her cool, gracious smile returning. "I've had rooms prepared for each of you—more than enough in fact. I expected quite a few more of you," she added, with an odd, secretive smile.  
  
Magnus rose from his seat, placed both hands on the table. "We did not come prepared to stay, Kitty."  
  
"Oh, come on, Mags," she said with a grin. "Rome wasn't built in a day."  
  
"Why do you think we will be interested in any deal you have to offer? The X-Men are not mercenaries. We do not work for money."  
  
"You might, for the right deal," she said with another secretive smile. "My servants will show you to your rooms. I think you'll find them more than adequate." She hesitated a moment, her face working with uncertain emotion, as if she considered saying something more. Then she phased through the floor and was gone.  
  
After a long moment, Magnus turned to the rest of the group. "What say you all?"  
  
Logan shrugged. "Well, you said yerself, our goals line up sometimes. Might be worth listenin' to. And none o' us got anywhere to be."  
  
He looked to Piotr, and much as his own need to return to the complex churned in his chest, he could not deny the man whatever choice he might make.  
  
Fervent hope still burned in the larger man's eyes, and Magnus felt their light resembled nothing so much as a funeral pyre.  
  
"Very well," he said with sinking hope. "We will stay."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The room was more than adequate, as Magnus had expected. Nothing less than the best for the members or guests of the Hellfire Club.  
  
He sighed and sat down on the edge of a bed that was large enough to hold five people with room to spare, tossed his helmet onto the night table, and rubbed at his temples.  
  
The headaches were coming with greater frequency and intensity now, but he still hardly gave them a passing thought. With all the stress he had endured lately, it was no wonder that his head ached.  
  
He thought back to the meeting, shook his head. This woman resembled nothing of the spirit of the Kitty Pryde he remembered, and yet, physically, she was exactly the same. Her movements, the cadence of her voice… Jaded, cynical, poisoned by her own losses, twisted by them in heart and mind, she reminded him so much of his younger self that it pained him.  
  
He understood, perhaps more than all the others, the ease of turning away from the world, of shutting out its pain and frail, human fallacies. He understood the loss of hope, the desire to rule the world rather than be tread upon by it. There was power in such belief, and the fires of that solitary rage had fueled his strikes against the world for nearly three decades, burned out his heart and left it a blackened cinder, ashes curling around its edges.  
  
The road back from such hatred was a long and painful one, and despite the fact that he had traveled its twists and turns for the last twelve years, he could not see the way for another to travel it. How many times had he stumbled, as he stumbled even now?  
  
Rogue. Remy. Rage. Hate. Revenge. That road was so much easier, and far more satisfying. None knew that better than he did.  
  
Sometimes, he thought he would trade his current life of pain and understanding for the simpler one of purposeful ignorance.  
  
_Is it even so, Magnus?_ Charles' voice spoke up in his mind.  
  
Caught in a moment of weakness, he pressed his hands to his face and leaned into his knees.  
  
_It is_, he answered, and felt a tear slip from the corner of one eye. How long since he had cried? How long since the pain of the world had driven him to such weakness? Magda, Rogue, Charles, Kitty, all of those he had failed, all of those he had killed in his time… their faces seemed to rise up out of the void and accuse him with hateful eyes, and he crumpled beneath the weight.  
  
_I do not want this. I cannot do this.  
  
"Is it even so?"  
  
It is.  
_  
His mind exploded in a bright flash of pain so bright and complete, that for a moment, he could see himself within his mind; a thin, dark silhouette against a red-black sky, one hand raised in a fist that railed at the heavens, the other spread outward, fingers pleading, as if seeking supplication.  
  
When the pain was gone, so was he.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Madelyne curled within the gigantic bed, luxuriating in the feel of silken sheets.  
  
_Mmm__… this is a life a girl could get used to,_ she thought, and snuggled her face against a pillow.  
  
She was drowsing, mind lost in the pleasant, bright land between slumber and waking, when a sharp rap sounded at her door.  
  
She sat bolt upright, every nerve suddenly alive and aware, mind already reaching out to see who was there.  
  
_What the devil--?_  
  
She wrapped a length of sheet around her body and dragged it to the door, pulling the latch open with her mind.  
  
The man stumbled through the threshold, losing his footing as he almost fell into her.  
  
"What the bloody blazes is wrong with you?" she demanded, startled and angry.  
  
And just like that, he regained his feet and stood up straight with suddenness that frightened her.  
  
"Why… nothing at all, my dear," he said with a malicious smile, and laid two fingers alongside her temple.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Jean?"   
  
The door fell open and Magnus staggered into her room, nearly falling to his knees.  
  
"Magnus!" the telepath gasped, leaping from her bed. "What is it?"  
  
"My mind... Ever since the body switch, I have been having… terrible headaches," he gasped, struggling to catch his breath. "They get worse… each time. The last one…. knocked me unconscious. I was… hoping you could… help me."  
  
She caught him with her telekinesis as he pitched forward, his consciousness fading, and floated him to the bed.  
  
"Damn," she muttered, biting down on her lower lip as she surveyed him. He sincerely didn't look well, and if the trouble was linked to the body switch…  
  
She pushed the thought from her mind, and seated herself on the bed next to him. No sense in guessing. He'd asked her for help, and it was the least she could do.  
  
She closed her eyes, and the world fell away.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
On the astral plane, everything was breathtaking, sparkling, glittering and glowing. It was almost completely healed of the Shadow King's wounds, and Jean found a sudden thirst she hadn't known existed completely quenched with her arrival there. She'd forgotten how much she loved it…  
  
Sensing something, she turned. Flames leaped and blurred around her astral form, and through them, she saw the tall, dark form of a man, a mirror image of herself standing just behind him.  
  
_What--?  
_  
_Shh__, my dear_, he sent, sliding up to her and placing a finger over her lips. She was caught, twin wills pressing down on her and holding her immobile as his hands slid down her sides, sending a cold shiver through her form.  
  
_You'll spoil the surprise.  
_  
She didn't even have time to scream.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Logan was awake the moment he heard footsteps outside his door, and he opened one eye just slightly to view the person who was entering his room.  
  
He sat up, but he didn't have time to utter a word as she leaped on him, mouth crushed against his, sweet, hard and demanding.  
  
His hands tangled in her hair, almost against his will, and then he pulled free, fighting every instinct, every desire.  
  
"Jeannie? For the love o' heaven, darlin', what're you doin'?"  
  
"What you've always wanted me to do," she whispered, voice a warm breath against his lips.  
  
He felt like he was drowning in her, her body so close against his, curves fitting perfectly together, soft and hard, smooth and rough.  
  
She kissed him again and darkness descended.  
  
He was lost.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Kitty ran through the halls of her newly restored home, heart thundering in her chest, bare feet slapping in a steady rhythm against the hard, marble floor.  
  
From hunter to the hunted in mere seconds, she would have phased if she could have fought through her panic long enough to do so.  
  
They were coming. They were too close behind her, their laughter mocking her and echoing in her head, making her moan.  
  
They were—  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
On the other side of the country, Jean-Luc and Irinee sat suddenly bolt-upright in bed, hands shaking, bodies covered in cold, dripping sweat, a dark shadow filling their minds like the reaper itself.  
  



	11. Chapter 10: Haunted

_Once divided...nothing left to subtract...  
Some words when spoken...can't be taken back...  
Walks on his own...with thoughts he can't help thinking...  
Future's above...but in the past he's slow and sinking...  
Caught a bolt 'a lightnin'...cursed the day he let it go...  
  
Nothingman...  
Nothingman…  
Isn't it something?  
Nothingman...  
  
            ~Nothingman, Pearl Jam  
_  
  
CHAPTER 10: HAUNTED  
  
"Come on, Remy," Storm taunted. Hovering in the air, black cape spread out behind her, her bright blue eyes gleamed with a touch of mischief.   
  
"I'm not sure 'bout dis, chere," he said with a doubtful look at her. Standing there, every curve and muscle outlined by what they insisted was standard X-Men uniform, he felt more than a little ridiculous.  
  
"The Danger Room is completely safe. I have set it to a low level of challenge. All tests indicate that you are well… and all you have to do is cross the room."  
  
"Somehow I'm t'inkin' it's not as easy as you make it sound."  
  
"Can it be that the vaunted Gambit is frightened?" she asked with the hint of a smile.  
  
His chest puffed with pride before he could catch himself, and then he grinned at her, askance. "You tryin' to bait me, chere?"  
  
She only smiled, and he felt wind rise around him, ruffling through his hair gently at first, then increasing in force.  
  
"I see how it is," he muttered with a smirk.  
  
"Begin program," Storm said, and then the room seemed to explode with obstacles and items.  
  
He saw a flash of light as a flurry of laser beams erupted, and he threw himself through the air on instinct, twisting his lithe body to avoid their rays. With a handspring forward off the floor, he was in motion again, arms and legs twisting and slicing through air with graceful ease as they dodged, spine coiling, rolling and flexing as he turned his body sideways to avoid another lance of light. He hit the floor in a forward roll and came up standing, something warning him not to stay in one place too long.  
  
He dodged to the right—again on pure instinct—and something sharp whistled past his ear. He threw himself forward again and pushed off with a handspring, launching himself above the barrage of missiles that rushed at him. He arced over their flight and landed on his feet, every nerve seeming to catch fire now as adrenaline kicked in and rushed his senses with the white-hot glow of power. It flooded through him, welcomed and somehow remembered, and he grinned.  
  
The grin faltered as he sensed/heard… something. He glanced up and saw a gigantic piece of machinery falling toward his head. At least ten-feet across, his mind processed, lightning quick, and then there was no time to think as he pushed off with his feet, trying with all his might and will to reach the relatively safe looking area of floor several feet away.  
  
He skidded along on his jaw and grimaced, feeling the thud of the weight as it hit the floor, bare inches from his feet.  
  
_Dere__ you go, gettin' cocky. Wish I had my bo staff, den—  
_  
_Bo staff?  
_  
What was a bo staff?  
  
Caught up in the almost remembered memory, he was completely unaware of the second machine that descended on him like a harbinger of doom.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Are you all right?" Storm asked, touching down near him as the machine struck him without impact and vanished as if it had never existed.  
  
"Not'in hurt 'cept my pride an' my jaw," Remy responded, rubbing said jaw with an expression of chagrin.  
  
"What happened?" Storm's entire face reflected the intensity of her question, as if she understood intrinsically that something of great importance had occurred.  
  
"Not'in," he protested with pride, then paused, thinking. "Chere… what's a bo staff?"  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
In New York, Magnus lounged in a high-backed chair and surveyed his team.  
  
It had been clever of Kitty to drug the champagne to make everyone more susceptible to her offer. He supposed that if things hadn't turned out as they had, Magnus would have found himself consuming even more of the drug the following morning, and eventually agreeing to whatever plan she had hidden up her sleeve. But that was no longer a concern.  
  
She knelt before him now, head bowed and subservient, the others gathered round her in a tight, vicious circle of malicious grins and leering glances.   
  
"What is your will, Master?" she asked.  
  
Like a horde of demons, the X-Men giggled and twined around each other. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice screamed in horror and outrage.  
  
The Shadow King looked upon it all, and deemed it good.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Remy sat, back pressed against the wall, knees drawn up, bo staff held between them, balanced on its end as he stared at it.  
  
The corridor was empty, and he didn't want to retreat back to his room, filled with machinery and already sour, new memories as it was.   
  
He heard her approach long before he saw her, and she didn't try to hide herself, skinny legs and bony kneecaps consuming the range of his vision beyond the object of fascination between his knees.  
  
"How you doin', chere?" he asked as he looked up, for lack of anything better to say.  
  
Irineé tried to smile, and it was a fragile and perilous affair. She lifted her slim shoulders in a shrug and struggled to keep her composure. "Okay, I guess." She took a deep breath, sighed. "I don't know. It's all so… strange, isn't it?"  
  
"Dat it is." He nodded and skirted her eyes as he glanced back down, trying to make his next question as nonchalant as possible. "How's your brother doin'?"  
  
She actually laughed, just a little, but it wasn't a pleasant sound. "He's angry, of course. Everything makes him angry, these days."  
  
"Learnin' dat life ain't fair…" Remy nodded slowly. "I t'ink I musta learned dat one back dere somewhere. How 'bout you, chere? You angry, too?""  
  
She crouched down and scooted next to him, not close enough to touch, and drew her knees up, resting her hands on them. "A little. But more sad than anything."  
  
"I can understand dat." He said, turning his head toward her. His daughter. So pretty and so small, so vulnerable and innocent. Lip gloss and candy coating, a girl on the verge of blossoming into a woman. It seemed wrong to him that he shouldn't remember her. A nothing man in a nothing place, an identity plastered on him, labels like husband and daddy that he knew should have meaning but didn't resonate. Stair cases in his mind that led nowhere, dark shadows and deep corners that seemed to beckon with glittering teeth. And though he wasn't at all sure what kind of man he had been before, he suddenly wanted to find his way home so badly that tears rose in his eyes.  
  
She turned, and the tears in her eyes mirrored his own. Longing like the reach of hands to touch the sun, the desire to draw it down and let it illuminate all the secrets and distance between them.  
  
"I… I don't know what to say," she admitted, as if it pained her, and the glimmer of tears filled her eyes, spilling over the edge of delicate lashes.  
  
He shook his head, soft and regretful. "Me neither, chere."  
  
"I missed you, Dad. God, it hurt so bad sometimes, how much I missed you." Her voice trembled and her hands shook, and she was so scared, so frightened to tell him this, and he wasn't sure if she feared causing him pain or worsening her own. Probably both.  
  
So strong, so brave. Even for twelve years old, she seemed ancient, as old as any of the others he had seen so far. He wondered if it was his death that had made her so, or her life as an X-Man, or if perhaps she'd just been born that way. No child should have to endure this, he thought, suddenly angry.  
  
"And now that you're back, it's like I don't know what to say, or how to feel, or how to act…"  
  
He didn't think about what he was doing; he just knew she was in pain. He reached out for her hand and took it in his own, closing his fingers gently over hers. She looked up with doe-eyed surprise, tears still shining in her eyes.  
  
"Me neither," he said again. He might not know her, but that didn't mean they couldn't share their sorrow.  
  
They sat there in comfortable silence for a long time.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Look at this!" Renaldo breathed with awe as he pointed to the screen. "The second pattern we found? It's changed even more."  
  
Dr. Hayes leaned over his shoulder and frowned. Indeed, the second pattern was completely different now, the tiny, almost cancerous spot they had noted the day before growing until it consumed the vision of the first with its phosphorous glow. "That's impossible. People's biorhythms don't just change over night."  
  
"This one did."  
  
"Did you double check it?"  
  
"Quadruple checked it. It's unprecedented."  
  
Her scowl cut even deeper into her brow, and she folded her arms over her chest. Dammit. This was all they needed. How were they going to explain this?  
  
A sudden thought occurred to her. "Does it still register as resembling our original target's biorhythm?"  
  
"Only on a trace level. It's removed from the original by more than ten cycles, but the trace is still there, yes."  
  
She shook her head, at a loss. "I don't understand. Has the target been cloned? Consumed by something…" she trailed off, her eyes widening in horror. The words had sparked a memory that shifted and chuckled inside her mind.  
  
Of course. It made perfect sense.  
  
After all, history did nothing more competently than repeat itself.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Rogue sat within the reflection room, soaking in the feel of southern gardens, their images depicted on every wall around her. It lacked the scent of honeysuckle, and wisteria, and all the other floral, organic scents of the south, but the images calmed her somehow, centered her.  
  
The door slid open on the north wall, interrupting the image of the willow tree whose branches spread outward and drooped, protectively, toward the floor.  
  
She turned her head, and caught her breath.  
  
Remy stood there, a bo staff in his hands, and he stared at it as if it might hold all the answers to the mysteries of the universe.  
  
"I remember dis," he said, as if to himself. His eyes traveled the length of polished wood, his hand following the smooth contour. "I don' remember anyt'ing else, but today, I remembered dis."  
  
She stared, at a loss for words. And God, he was so beautiful, his lean, lithe body encased in spandex that left little or nothing to the imagination, bo staff in his hands, shadow of stubble across his angular jaw, lost little-boy look in his strange, wondrous eyes. Surrounded by the beauty of the south that was her home and her solace, he was the most beautiful centerpiece she could have imagined.  
  
He lifted his eyes to her, those eyes that always seemed to smolder with fire and intensity, their red pupils burning like twin coals against their black backdrop, and looked at her, so searching, so desperate. She hadn't thought her heart could break any more for everything that had happened, and yet she felt it fracture along a thin line for his sadness, for everything he had lost, and the well of her emotion swelled against the breach. She cradled her hands to her chest and tried to hold back the tide.  
  
"Mebbe soon, I remember you, non?" he asked, his smirk thin and stretched. And oh, she could feel his pain, feel his confusion. He didn't remember her, but he wanted to. Some part of him, at least. Perhaps the part lost with the memories of their life together. And he was scared of remembering those things, of realizing the level of commitment and love he had given to her. She knew that because she knew him, knew how he thought, how he moved, how he used to be in the days before they had come together. He was terrified of this… but so was she.  
  
She swallowed hard, mustered the courage to hold his gaze, though she knew her heart must be visible in the look she gave him. And oh, she wanted to say so many things—everything! But slow, she had to take this slow. She took a deep breath, calmed the thunder of heart. "How… how did you remember?"  
  
He blinked, shrugged. "I was trainin' in de Danger Room, and while I was movin', it occurred to me dat it would be a whole lot easier if I had my bo staff. 'Course, I didn't know what a bo staff was, 'til I asked Stormy." His smile grew thin and brittle again. "When she told me, den it clicked."  
  
She nodded slowly, taking that in, and then she patted the empty next to her on the bench, reaching for her tattered cloak of bravery as she smiled. "The staff was always your favorite, next to the cards." He frowned in confusion, and she held on, held tight to the remnants of her courage. "Come on. Sit down. Ah'll tell you all about it, if ya want."  
  
He moved slowly, like a man in a dream, and sat next to her, his hands still caressing the bo staff as he leveled it across his lap. "It's de only t'ing I remember," he said, his voice at once an apology and a bitter twist of anger.  
  
"It's…" she started to speak, then bit back the automatic words. "It's _not_ okay…" she said with a bitter laugh, and shook her head. "But Ah'm tryin' to be okay. Tryin' to understand."  
  
He set the staff aside, placing it carefully on the floor beside him, and turned to her with a look that took her breath away.  
  
"I'm not gonna lie to you, chere. All dis… you… de children. It scares me more dan I can say. I don't know what kind of man I was before, but I get de feeling I wasn't de family type." He paused, shook his head. "But I want to know who I was… who I am. An' I was t'inkin'… maybe if dat jogged my memory… den…"  
  
Breathing was a concept that existed somewhere outside of her, somewhere where the world made sense and didn't narrow to the two brilliant points of light in his eyes.  
  
His hand came up, caressed the curve of her face, smooth fingers brushing against her with a familiar graze that called up more memories than she could lay name to—and yet it was all different, so completely different. Her heart trip hammered in her chest, and though she wanted this—wanted it with all her heart—she was so suddenly, inconceivably terrified.  
  
His eyes held her with an intensity that made her ache, and in that moment, her heart remembered to beat, her lungs remembered to draw breath.  
  
"Den mebbe dis jog my memory, too," he said, his voice a soft, lascivious caress.  
  
He leaned in, and his mouth met hers in a trembling, uncertain moment. Only mouths at first, gently testing each other, tasting each other, feeling each other out—and then the moment took over, and they opened like the desert desperate for rain. She caught the taste of him on her tongue, and swirled it around, touching every surface, and her hands came up, catching his face between them, pulling him in deeper, deeper still, slaking her desperate thirst with the well of his soul.  
  
God he tasted like memory, and home, and she drank down every drop, reveling in every moment. Tongues circled and teased like they'd always known how, like they'd been waiting only for this moment to remember, and she whimpered against his mouth, pulling him even closer.  
  
His hands tangled in her hair, and he met the passion of her kiss with wild abandon that left her gasping, undone, completely consumed. His mouth sought something beyond love or even lust; it sought memory and hope with an intensity that left her spinning, the entire world compressed into the fine, bright line of a horizon that fled from her even as she tried to reach it.  
  
He pulled away, mouth still working, gasping for a breath of air into tortured lungs that had been breathless until that very moment.  
  
"I… I don't remember," he gasped and shook his head, his voice a tortured mess of longing, broken glass and bleeding love, scattered along the highway. "I shouldn't have…" He stopped, and his face twisted back upon itself with regret. "I'm… sorry, chere," he managed, and then he disentangled himself from her, pulling away, taking that horizon, that entire world with him as he drew away.  
  
Tears rose in her eyes, but he didn't see them as he gathered his bo staff and stumbled his way out the door.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Veronica did not want to contact her superior. Not at all. Not even if what she suspected was true. Especially not then.  
  
She had taken some time to think it through, but she wasn't coming up with any solutions, and a report of their complete failure seemed inevitable.  
  
"Where is the target currently?" she asked as she walked up and stood next to Renaldo, hands gripping the edge of the console so hard that the metallic edges beneath cut into her flesh. "Can we track it?"  
  
"Normally, no. But this resonance is so strong, I think I may be able to narrow it down a bit…" Renaldo said, typing in commands at the speed of light.  
  
"Somewhere on the upper East Coast…" he said after a moment, and shook his head. "Wait… looks like… maybe New York?"  
  
Upper East Coast. New York. Veronica's mind turned that over, making connections with light-speed. She didn't know everything about her superior's plans, but she knew enough to make her think that this was all going south in big way. Very, very quickly.  
  
Months ago, Veronica had concocted a serum for her superior, a neural inhibitor of sorts, one that made the imbiber very susceptible to outside influence and suggestion, to be delivered to a particular address in New York. She hadn't thought much of it at the time, beyond noting the location of another possible scheme. A little research had revealed a place with unlikely name of "Hellfire Club" at that address, and with a moment of hilarity at the ridiculous name, she had put the incident out of her mind.  
  
He didn't keep her apprised of all his plans, as it should be, but she had known that whatever she was sending them had something to do with another of his schemes. And she knew that all of his schemes revolved around mutants, and one mutant in particular.  
  
If that biorhythm was somewhere in New York, mutated as it was, what were the chances that it had been lured there by another of her superior's schemes?  
  
It might be a stretch, and she might be being paranoid, but scientists, as a rule, believed very little in coincidence.  
  
This could change everything.  
  
"We have to contact him," she said with a sigh of resignation.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Remy stood outside the complex, watching the sun set in the west. The red earth of Arizona turned an even deeper shade of crimson as it sank, shadows pooling around his feet like specters. He took a breath, inhaled long and deep of the cheroot he'd appropriated from Logan's stash, and tried to still the troubled beat of his heart, drown out the voices that gibbered in his mind.  
  
He didn't know why he'd wanted this nasty thing, he just knew the moment he'd seen them he'd wanted one very, very badly. And it seemed to be helping. His nerves calmed, his head cleared a little with each deep breath, and at last, he steadied.  
  
Images flashed though his mind… small fingers entwined with his in silent solace… deep green eyes and the shuddering touch of soft lips that worshipped and loved him. His daughter. His wife. His girls. And a son who seemed to hate him for not remembering. And all of them in so much pain… because of him.  
  
His wife. He turned the word over in his mind, strange and unfamiliar as it seemed. A kiss like that, love like the love he'd seen in her eyes and felt in her touch… you'd think he'd remember something of that.  
  
_And beyond all that and by the way Remy, who are you, anyway?  
_  
He watched the sun set, trying desperately to find something he remembered, something that would make it all make sense.  
  
He was still waiting when darkness fell, the cheroot forgotten, burned down to a small nub between his fingers.  
  
Maybe he just didn't belong here.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"I respect your concern, Dr. Hayes—although I am deeply offended by your nosing about into my business—but I assure you that everything in New York is going completely according to plan. Plan C, to be precise."  
  
Veronica shook her head, wondering why she didn't seem to be getting through. "Sir, with all due respect, if what I believe is true, our entire operation could be in danger of collapsing. And beyond that, the entire world may be at risk."  
  
"Dr. Hayes, I am ordering you to back off this project as of this very instant. The target no longer needs to be tracked, and has progressed beyond the level of Plan B's divide and conquer theme. Everything is now within my court. Nimrod II is yours, Plan B is yours, this is mine."  
  
Veronica bit down on her lower lip, drawing blood to keep from replying. After a long moment, she pressed the intercom button. "Yes sir."  
  
"But just in case," the voice went on, and she thought she detected a different note there, veiled and hidden just beneath the brittle anger. Something sly. "I'd like you and all of the staff there to remain within the complex. Do not return to your homes. The facilities there should be adequate to your needs for a few days until I sort all of this out."  
  
She hesitated even longer this time before replying, the wheels of her mind spinning.  
  
"Yes sir."  
  
"I'll be in contact soon," he snapped, and the intercom clicked off.  
  
She sank down into a chair and pressed her face into her hands. If what she suspected were true, there was far more at stake here than their project. Why would he ignore that? Unless…  
  
Perhaps that was his true plan?  
  
No. She shook her head, confused. It didn't make sense.  
  
And the command to stay on site… that troubled her even more deeply than anything else he'd said, though she couldn't pin down exactly why.  
  
Although… they'd served their purpose, gotten the target to Plan C and out of their realm. Perhaps they were expendable now?  
  
That seemed much more likely. A man of his stature and power wouldn't want any loose ends. But what if it were even more than that? What if he had—  
  
Terror pounded in her heart as the thought struck her, and she knew, somehow, on a gut level, an instinctive level, that it was completely true.  
  
There was no way in hell she was staying here, like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.  
  
"Come on, Renaldo, we've got to get out of here. I'll explain on the way…"  
  
Renaldo looked at her, uncomprehending, and blinked once. "Veronica, what are you talking about? Didn't you hear him? We've got to stay put."  
  
"If we do, we're dead," she said, gathering up her things and stuffing them into her bag. "If I'm right, then that thing we saw on the screen earlier is headed straight here."  
  
"That's impossible!" Renaldo sputtered. "No one knows we're here, except…" She watched as realization sank in, and then nodded.  
  
"Except him."  
  
"Okay, now you're just being paranoid," Renaldo scoffed. "You think the Shadow King is--" He broke off, as if suddenly realizing he'd said too much.  
  
Her own realization went off like a bombshell exploding in her chest. "Renaldo…" she said, her voice shaking just a bit. "How do you know what I'm thinking?"  
  
Renaldo's face went carefully blank for a moment, and then his face split in slow smile that made her shiver.  
  
"Oops."  
  
  
  
  



	12. Chapter 11: Schism

_I know the pieces fit, cuz I watched them fall away  
Mildewed and smoldering. Fundamental differing.  
Pure intention juxtaposed, will set two lovers souls in motion  
Disintegrating as it goes, testing our communication  
The light that fueled our fire then has burned a hole between us so  
We cannot see to reach an end crippling our communication.  
  
            ~Schism, Tool  
__  
_  
CHAPTER 11: SCHISM  
  
"You know, Dr. Hayes," Renaldo said, rounding the corner of his console and stepping toward her with sinister purpose. "Not everyone hated the Shadow King for what he did. Some of us adored him, worshipped what he made us."  
  
Veronica stepped backwards, stumbling and nearly tripping over her own bag. She regained her feet and took another shaky step backward, her terrified eyes never leaving him.  
  
"You're a mutant."  
  
Renaldo agreed with a slight incline of his head, insidious smile widening just a fraction. "I can't believe it took you this long to catch on, Doctor."  
  
"But… but… You're part of an anti-mutant project! Why would you be here if you're a mutant?" Her mind swirled in incomprehension, terror nipping at the heels of logical thought.  
  
"Where better?" he asked, and spread his arms. "Why do you think Nimrod II failed, good Doctor? An acolyte of the Shadow King would never help create a robot that had any hope of destroying Magneto. Without him, the Shadow King has no chance of ever existing again."  
  
"But the Shadow King destroyed the world!" she argued, her mind reeling. Her feet felt as off-balance as her head, and she could barely keep herself upright as she staggered back another step. "Why would you want that?"  
  
"For a mutant, I'm incredibly weak. Even my telepathy doesn't work that well unless the thoughts are very well projected. But with the Shadow King in the world—_ruling_ the world—I have a place of power, as one of the only telepaths at his right hand. When the X-Men killed him, they took that from me." His face contorted in a snarl of rage. "And I'll never let that happen again."  
  
She grasped for the only thing that came to mind. "I thought the Shadow King killed all the telepaths?" This couldn't be happening, could it? A mutant? Here?   
  
"He spared those who served him."  
  
She shook her head in disbelief, her rage outweighing her fear in that instant. "So you came here, joined the project to sabotage Nimrod II?"  
  
He gave a soft, disarming laugh. "Oh no, Doctor. I couldn't have done that. Too many people would have had my head for that, and your programming was far too precise to sabotage completely. But I did add a few quirks of my own. Ones that would send him chasing after every anomaly in the universe until he encountered one that could defeat him."  
  
"I thought you said no one could defeat him."  
  
"No one _our_ intelligence knew about," he said with a sly grin. "But I happen to know of one who could. One who got brought back a few years ago. And apparently she got the job done."  
  
She shook her head, wordless and numb.  
  
"You know Doctor, I always thought mutants were ruthless, but I guess it's just anyone with power, huh? Working here with you like I have…" He shook his head, almost admiring. "You're the most cold-hearted human I've ever met. It's almost a shame to have to kill you."  
  
She backed up another step and felt her back hit a table. Trapped. Nowhere left to run.  
  
"Renaldo… you don't have to kill me. If the Shadow King's in power then there's no one left to tell--"  
  
He pulled a snub-nosed revolver from his lab coat and aimed it at her.  
  
"Oh," he said softly, and with aggrandizing regret. "But I do."   
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Veronica went very still, hands holding the table in a death grip. Her heart trip-hammered in her chest, and fear beat a primitive tattoo through her blood. Every nerve fired with instinct, begging her to run, but she stood her ground, chest heaving, dark strands escaping from the prim twist of her hair, and let him close the distance between them.  
  
With a revolver that small, he'd have to get very close…  
  
She kicked out with her foot, praying with every strain of her muscles, and connected with the hand that held the gun, sending it skittering across the floor. Seven years of self-defense lessons that she hadn't practiced in more than half that time, but it saved her. The look of surprise on Renaldo's face almost made it worth the pain in her foot where she'd struck metal. Almost.  
  
She didn't waste any time gloating though, as she grabbed a tool from the table behind her—the mini-blowtorch exactly where she'd left it three days ago. It was small, but it was heavy, and it made sick cracking sound as it connected with Renaldo's skull and sent him flailing to the floor.  
  
Her first instinct was to run, but she squished the feeling, letting her clinical mind take over again. _Finish it, Veronica. Don't leave him alive to come after you._  
  
She glanced around for the gun, but it was lost among the spill of wires and the bulk of equipment. No matter. She didn't need it, anyway.  
  
She reached for a pair of scissors, and let her scientific knowledge of the human body take over.  
  
Two sharp pierces later, it was done.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Remy sat at the edge of his bed, staring down at his hand. Connected to him, responding to his mental urges, fingers curling and flexing, so much a part of him; a marvel of biological design. So easy, so natural. Why didn't his mind respond the same way?  
  
He knew the pieces fit. He could feel it. Tiny shards of memory rubbing together, their sharp edges cutting him as he struggled to untangle the skein that would weave them together in a complete tapestry. If he only knew how…  
  
The hand was attached to him… he just didn't know who it belonged to. And this was all way too deep and philosophical for this hour of the night.  
  
Still, thoughts paraded, spinning like a grand carousel, strange creatures and prancing horses with menacing grins. He thought about the little girl who slept just a few corridors away, the hope and pain in her eyes. The boy who slept even nearer whose mouth had cut with anger and hurt. The woman who slept closer still, whose eyes had held the promise of a life that must have been good, once. It was all there, all his, and he could reach out with this hand and take them all in his arms, try to love them, try to remember, try to be the best father and husband he knew how to be.  
  
Or he could scoop up the bo staff—the only part of his former identity he remembered so far—and set off to find himself. Who knew? Given what they'd explained about mutant life, they could all very well be swept up in some kind of mass delusion. He didn't really believe that, in his heart, but the possibility did exist. And if he stayed… he would only bring them more pain.  
  
But how much more pain would it bring, for him to leave? Did it matter? He felt so much guilt already for a life he didn't remember living, for not being what they wanted him to be. It was too much, too hard… too soon. Some part of him wanted to give them everything, but he didn't have it to give.  
  
Did he love them? He wasn't sure. He wanted to, but it was only an idea, nothing based on reality, or time, or experience. It would be living a lie, and he wasn't prepared to cheat them or himself like that, even if it might make them happy for a brief while.  
  
But he wanted to. Oh, he _wanted_ to.  
  
He clenched his hand into a fist and held it there, staring at it as he pondered greater things. The man he had been, the man he might yet be. What he knew about his life, the love he saw in his family. And the pain. He wanted to stay, he really, truly did, and he marveled at that. But he didn't know if it was because of them, or because this was the only place he knew, the only safe "home" he'd had so far in this new life. And until he knew the answer to that…  
  
"I'm sorry," he whispered, and opened his hand.  
  
He stood up, took a slow turn and looked around the room that had been his home for these past few brief days, wrapped his fingers around his bo staff, and opened the door.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Ororo tossed uneasily in her bed, her dreams dark and troubled. There were faces… some she recognized and some she didn't, all of them twisted until mouths and eyes consumed their features. Mindless giggling demons without horns or tail, gleefully evil as they descended on her, fingers reaching beneath her skin and pulling out her heart, her brain, her liver. She writhed and begged and pleaded, and though there was no pain, the absence of their weight was a hollow ache.  
  
Something twitched; some sort of sixth sense that was… familiar, somehow. And then a large shadow loomed over her, fingers reaching inside her, rearranging her, reordering her mind to its liking, hollowing out her heart and devouring her liver.  
  
She woke with a start, the thing's laughter still echoing in her ears. And at the back of her mind, that sixth sense still rang out, still shrilled with the warning of impending danger. She clutched the sheets to her breast and closed her eyes, trying to find the spiritual center of herself.  
  
By morning, she would have written it off to a simple nightmare, but right now, it felt entirely real, and it was all she could do to keep from opening her eyes to make certain she was still alone.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Irineé woke from similar dreams, eyes wide and fingers clutching.  
  
_Soon, child_, the sepulchral voice still echoed in her mind.    
  
She kicked off the covers and rose from her bed, hurrying from the room as if she could leave the dream behind with her bed.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Remy hadn't gotten more than a few steps outside the complex before doubt began to set in. Where was he going? What was he going to do? He didn't have any clothes except the ones he'd woken up in, nothing to carry with him, save the meager amount of food he'd grabbed from the cupboard. Hell, he wasn't even sure which direction he was headed in, or where the nearest town was. He could get caught in the desert out here and die a long, lonely, painful death.  
  
His feet lost their rhythm as the thoughts played out, but he didn't stop. He didn't know where he was going, but he didn't know anything about what was behind him, either. Except that it was confusing, and it hurt.  
  
A thin shaft of light cut across the floor of packed earth from somewhere behind him, and widened rapidly. Remy spun, bo staff gripped tight and held up in front of his chest on some kind of autopilot response.  
  
"Dad?" Irineé stood in the doorway cut in the side of the mountain, her tiny face looking lost.  
  
He lowered the staff and felt his heart sink with it.  
  
She took an uncertain step outside, like a child who has lost her way and isn't sure if she might be dreaming. "Are you… leaving?"  
  
He opened his mouth, not at all sure of what was going to come out. "I…"  
  
She took another step, and the door closed of its own accord behind her, leaving her a silhouette cut from the cloth of night, moonlight reflecting in her luminous eyes. "You _are_ leaving." And oh, the raw pain, the betrayal in that voice. It cut into him like a thousand tiny daggers.  
  
He lifted his hands, beseeching her. "I… I don't know how to make it right."  
  
"I don't know how to make it right either!" she snapped back, her voice tightening with anger as shock gave way to something more visceral. "But I'm trying! You can't just leave! You can't just give up!"  
  
His eyes fluttered shut, as if to stave off the pain her words caused him, but it didn't help. Behind his eyes, he could still see her there, could imagine the tears that choked her voice rising in her eyes, the furious anger at his betrayal maligning her porcelain doll features. It wasn't fair, he thought. How could he be expected to make this right for her?  
  
"Cherie… it's not dat simple--"  
  
"I know it's not simple!" she cut him off, her voice trembling on the edge of hysteria. "It's not easy! But nothing we do is easy! Never give up, Dad. That's what you taught us. You and mom both."  
  
"Petite…" he began, then stopped, his own frustration growing into burgeoning anger. He took a deep breath, let it out, opened his eyes. "I wish I could make dis right for you--"  
  
"I'm not asking you to make it right!" she said desperately. "I'm just asking you to stay." Her voice broke on the last word, tears at last breaking free. She turned away, rubbed a hand over her face in a brisk, annoyed motion.   
  
He stood motionless, unable to speak.  
  
"I watched you in that bed while you were hurt…" her voice was calmer now, not verging on shouting, but it was still just as edged with anger and lament. "And I kept thinking that any second, your eyes were going to open, and you were going to smile at me and grab me up in a hug and tell me how much you've missed me all these years… how much you love me… and then everything would be okay again." She pressed her lips together and bit back a tiny sob that she couldn't quite keep from slipping out, and her voice grew even quieter. "You'd kiss my nose, and I'd feel like I was six and safe again and everything was all right in the world. And all the years you've been gone would just disappear like they never happened." Her lower lip trembled, and her breath caught. "But I knew that wasn't going to happen. I knew your eyes were going to open and you wouldn't even know who we were."  
  
He shook his head, not understanding. "Den why…"  
  
"But I thought, 'it's okay'," she went on, as if she hadn't heard him at all. "Because even if he doesn't remember us; he's alive. And as long as he's alive, there's hope. Hope that maybe one day he _will_open his eyes and know us." She heaved another sob, the sound wracking her fragile chest, and Remy's heart ached to hear that sound, broke for that pain.  
  
"But if you leave… then that's never going to happen," she said, her voice a bare whisper that pleaded with him. She walked the few steps that separated them, and he could see her clearly now, child's face with the eyes of a woman, the eyes of an ancient, filled with tears and innocent hope.  
  
He didn't know who he had been, but he felt he'd always been ill-equipped to deal with situations like this. "I'm sorry, Irineé…" he whispered, regret deepening the tone of his voice, and his eyes did not shy from hers, meeting her gaze just as bravely as she met his. "I feel like… I have to do dis."   
  
She crumpled—there was no other word for it. One moment, she was standing, and the next, her body fell in upon itself, crashing to her knees. Her face twisted with the effort of speaking through her teary sobs, and her fingers dug deep into the hard earth. "Is it… is it because…" her eyes fell from his as another sob gripped her, and her shoulders sagged, crushed in utter defeat. "Is it because of what happened? Because of… what you did for us?"  
  
His eyes widened, and he caught his breath. "What?"  
  
She lifted her tear-stained face to his again, her eyes oceans where secrets and guilt swam like dark creatures beneath clear green. "Did it hurt when you died?" she asked, her voice a ragged, plaintive whisper that left her like the cleaving of a limb. "Did it hurt so much… that you had to… forget us?"  
  
The words hit him with such force that they took his breath away.  
  
"Mon dieu, child," he breathed in a ragged whisper as he fell to his knees. "Non."  
  
He pulled her to him, gathered her in his arms and held her close, cradling her head against the curve of his cheek as he shook his head, feeling his tears sink into the soft silver of her hair as it brushed against his face.  
  
"Non."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
And in the quiet moment between them, far away, other minds shivered in anticipation.  
  
"Do you feel that?" Madeylne whispered, almost excited.  
  
"Power," Jean whispered back, and they rustled against each other like autumn leaves.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Rinny?" Jean-Luc burst from the complex's door like a hero from a storybook, all righteous anger and deadly intent.  
  
His eyes locked on his sister and his father and flashed red. "What did you do to her?" he demanded, every syllable pronounced with slow, succinct enunciation.  
  
Remy felt spiders skitter up his spine with the sound of that voice, its deadly calm hitting him with more force than the lash of a whip, leaving behind jagged lines of terror that jangled and sang in his nerves.  
  
This was going to be bad.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Jean-Luc had woken from unremembered dreams with a certainty that something was wrong, the bond between him and his sister screaming with pain and indescribable need.  
  
She was in so much pain. It filled him, foaming in his mind with madness. And it was _his_ fault.  
  
His father. His beloved father, who didn't even remember them. Who didn't even have the guts to…  
  
His eyes widened as the full scope of the picture came into focus.  
  
His beloved father who didn't even have the guts to _stick it out_.  
  
Anger ignited and exploded in his mind, cleansing it with pure, animal rage.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Poor thing," Madelyne crooned.  
  
"Yes," said Jean, and gave her twin a sly smile. "Maybe we should help him out?"  
  
Madelyne grinned back.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"You need to move now, chere," Remy murmured into Irineé's hair, shoving her away.  
  
He rose to his feet, staff already in his hand although he couldn't remember having picked it back up.  
  
"You wanna piece of your old man, boy?" he asked, face crinkling in a cynical smile. "Can't say I blame you."  
  
The words barely spoken, Remy's mind detonated, fragmented shards exploding in a thousand directions, freezing him where he stood. He couldn't fight this. His fingers strayed, strained toward the playing cards in his pocket—the one thing he'd thought to bring with him besides food—and then stilled…  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Jean-Luc!" Irineé cried, rising from the ground, her eyes and voice still filled with tears yet unshed. "Stop it! He didn't mean to! He didn't do it on purpose!"  
  
But Jean-Luc was beyond hearing, beyond understanding. His rage was so complete that he failed to sense the presence of others in his mind, their emotions fueling his, sly fingers pulling the locks on his power.  
  
His father didn't know them, didn't understand. Well… he'd _make_ him understand.  
  
"Stop," Irineé shouted, her voice harsh with reproach now. "Stop it!"  
  
But he couldn't. The flow of power seeped from him, insinuating itself between the cracks of his father's mind, blowing apart every thought, every fragment he could find. The upper barrier of his mind had been breached, and he was cruising on sheer power. He was beyond reproach, beyond reprimand. He was a God, and no one could stand between him and his will…  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
His sister stood before him on the astral plane, her form larger than he had ever seen it. Larger than he was… larger than the threat that loomed in the distance.  
  
_Jean-Luc… don't make me_, she pleaded, her face the picture of troubled serenity.  
  
And it only made him push harder. Damn her for being stronger than him. Damn her for standing in the way of this when it was her, _her _feelings that had made this happen.  
  
_Jean-Luc, please…  
_  
He reached out with his astral hand, watched her image flicker and dissipate beneath his touch.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Remy felt himself coming apart at the seams; faint stitches made by the past few days split and opened like a gaping wound.  
  
And strangely, he felt like this was the way it should be. He had already died; what more could he offer to this world?  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_I already died… what more can I offer?  
_  
The thought hit Jean-Luc like a physical blow, and suddenly he could feel the despair, the weariness of his father's heart. His father was lost… more lost than they were. Jean-Luc recoiled, pulling back from the feeling.   
  
And Irineé seized that moment to intervene.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Time to go," Madelyne and Jean said in unison. They withdrew, their eyes fluttering open, and grinned at each other like mirrored reflections.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"He didn't mean to," Irineé sobbed into her brother's shoulder.

Jean-Luc's head lolled in her embrace, oblivious to her words.

"What happened here?" Their mother now, awake and frantic, her eyes burning holes into Remy as they fell on him with accusation.  
  
"I'm so, so sorry," Irineé whispered, reverent and apologetic, although she knew he couldn't hear her.  
  
She was the one who'd shut down his synapses, after all.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
And across the continent, the Shadow King craned his head in response to the ripples of power that had just exploded through the astral plane.  
  
_Soon, child_, he thought.  
  
_Soon.__  
_  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_Elsewhere…  
_  
Veronica didn't stop running until the complex was a distant shape on the horizon behind her, and only then because her legs gave out. She fell to the ground, letting her bag break some of the impact of her fall, and lay there, panting, the stitch in her side digging deep into her lungs.  
  
When she'd started to leave the lab, she hadn't thought much about where she would go—her only instinct had been to get as far away from it as possible. Renaldo's revelation and intervention hadn't given her further time to think on it, and her mind had been consumed by blind, gibbering panic until she'd collapsed. But as her breathing began to slow, and the pains in her body began to fade a bit, the questions crept back in. Where could she go that her superior wouldn't find her? He would hunt her down, she knew. There was too much at stake not to. And if the Shadow King had subverted him, as she suspected, then there was nowhere on earth that was far enough to run.  
  
The Shadow King. He'd destroyed the earth once already… razed it to the ground, enslaved and killed both human and mutant. And he was about to do it again…. Unless someone stopped him.  
  
An odd laugh escaped her as the thought occurred. She clapped a hand over her mouth to still it, the sound startling her heart into another frantic beat. Stop him… no one could stop him.  
  
But someone had…  
  
The answer to all her questions and problems occurred to her like a strike of lightning that left her dazed.  
  
"No…" she whispered. "Oh no."  
  
_There has to be another way. Has to be_, she pleaded.  
  
But there wasn't.  
  
  



	13. Chapter 12: Seduction

_In the night  
Come to me  
You know I want your touch of evil  
In the night  
Please set me free  
I can't resist a touch of evil  
  
Arousing me now with a sense of desire  
Possessing my soul till my body's on fire  
  
A dark angel of sin  
Preying deep from within  
Come take me in  
  
I'm so afraid  
But I still feed the flame  
  
You're possessing me  
  
            ~Touch of Evil, Judas Priest  
__  
_  
CHAPTER 12: SEDUCTION  
  
He had been known as Amahl Farouk once, when the world was young and just beginning to lose its innocence to the age of industrialism. It was a time when the word mutant had yet to be discovered, and even then he had had great plans.  
  
He scarcely even recalled his mortal body, what his face had looked like. Such concerns had been beyond him the moment Charles Xavier had cast him from the mortal coil and deserted him on the astral plane. Left for dead by his enemy, he had become part of the weave of the astral plane itself, had become a spirit, a force without face and known only by the name Shadow King. And though the name pleased him little, the fear with which it was spoken pleased him greatly.  
  
He was a mirage, the desert flower, the hidden oasis, salvation wrapped in deception, waiting only to devour. He was timeless, ageless, at once tied to everything and nothing at all. In his attempt to slay his enemy, Charles Xavier had created a foe beyond all reckoning.  
  
Seduction was a fall from grace, a beautiful descent into darkness and desire that could only truly be appreciated by one practiced in its art. Humans and mutants alike thought themselves noble and pure, despite all their actions to the contrary. Could he be blamed for opening the fragile flowers of their minds? For allowing them to experience the darkness and anger and base desire that drove each of them on a level they were barely even aware of? Like the serpent in the Garden, he dangled the fruit, and let each of them taste of the truth. The anger, the hatred that consumed them did not come from him; it came from within, and that made its taste all the more sweet.  
  
He opened them, but he did not control them. They followed him willingly, their blood lust and hatred fueling their fervor. Forces unknown and unspoken, forbidden to be thought of, were far stronger than any moral code imposed by the world. They reveled in their freedom, and he was their savior.  
  
Seduction was a slow, languorous art, all the more beautiful for its simplicity, perfect in its duplicity, and he was a master. Slowly, ever so slowly, he granted the heart's desire for freedom, for power, for control, and they flocked to him.  
  
Prisoners in a web of their own making, he only showed them the design.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Jean-Luc stood at the top of the world, his arms raised high in the air, as if in supplication. Power sang in his veins and writhed on the wind around him, rising in a crescendo of glory. Above him, the sun shone, bright and blinding, and below, people bowed and scraped like tiny stick figures, their words and efforts futile, lost to his ears.   
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Irineé  sat and watched over her brother with a troubled heart. Almost twenty-four hours had passed in relative silence, her father and brother sleeping through the mental effects of their struggle.  
  
She didn't understand what had happened, why her brother had lost control like that, but it worried her. Worried her even more than the tenuous grip of sanity their father was holding on to.  
  
Jean-Luc moaned and shifted in his sleep and Irineé  felt a sudden chill creep down her spine, the sound of his voice lodging there with icy claws and digging deep. The image of a mountain flashed through her mind, and all around her, the grass turned black and withered as blood began to rain from the sky.  
  
The image passed as quickly as it had come, and she shook it off, chalking it up to her overwrought emotions. Maybe she had better get some sleep, herself.  
  
She fell into a sea of troubled dreams, the feeling of foreboding skittering up and down her spine like a millipede.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Ororo stood in the old attic room of her home in the mansion. Devoid of furniture or the plants she had once so loved, she felt stripped naked beyond the bare skin of her flesh, which rose with the chill of goose bumps, wintery wind drifting down through the open skylight.  
  
Logan's arms tightened around her chest from behind, twining around her with complicated emotion. The moon loomed large above, filled with questions and dreams, and beneath its light she felt small and vanquished. What was her pride in the face of this?  
  
She turned to him, words on the tip of her tongue, entire revolutions and revisions spinning on the edge of her mind. The design of the universe, of everything that was possible seemed to flash before her, and she had only to touch it to take back the space of years.  
  
Forge's face stared back at her, and her blood turned to ice.  
  
"Untouchable, unreachable Goddess," he accused, voice falling from his mouth with a rasp that was at once his and Logan's both.  
  
"No," she pleaded, desperate. "I gave up that persona years ago."  
  
His face became fluid, melting like candle wax and reforming into Logan's knowing smile. "Fat chance, darlin'," he said, and she felt his claws trace a pattern over her heart.  
  
Arctic wind filled the room and he disappeared before her eyes. She was freezing, ice cold, bone-chilled in a way she had never known. Her skin tightened with a rime of frost that seemed to spread from the design over her heart, and her neck crackled as she craned it, staring down at the symbol he had left behind.  
  
A bloody "x" crisscrossed her dark breast, the cuts shallow and sluggishly bleeding even as they pumped out ice. A symbol of her team, which she had devoted her life to. A symbol in mathematics declaring that which is unknown.   
  
She stared down at it and felt her skin harden, her insides turning to solid ice, and knew it was a condemnation… a declaration.  
  
A mark to cross out that which no longer existed or mattered.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Irineé  stared into a mirror, at last finding a place of peace between the corridors of her nightmares. She breathed deep, took a moment to think.  
  
In the mirror, her face twisted, shifted, becoming almost demonic, and she gasped and backed away.  
  
A dagger slipped between her ribs from behind, penetrating her heart, and she turned, blood frothing on her lips, breath escaping from the slit in her lungs as she stared at her attacker.  
  
Her own face grinned back at her.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Remy tossed and turned and thrashed in his sleep, ghostly images chasing him down the corridors of his mind. There were people there that he knew—he _knew_ he knew them—but he couldn't remember who they were, or what they wanted. He tried to speak to them, to ask them what they wanted, but every time he stopped, they attacked him with fists and hands and weapons, and so he ran on.  
  
All around him, boxes rose and towered in precarious stacks, seemingly endless as they rose up out of sight and forward beyond the range of his vision, as far as he could see. No matter where he ran, no matter how many corners he turned, they went on, relentless, heedless of his predicament.  
  
Cardboard boxes, wooden crates, file cabinets, metal lock boxes, all labeled with strange, mysterious words that he felt he should know somehow, but didn't recognize. Bizarre words and phrases surrounded him, flying by in meaningless syllables as he ran; Guild Laws, Elixir, Candra, Externals—  
  
He stopped at the end of the row, his attention caught by one box in particular, larger than the rest in the row. Chains surrounded its girth, clenched in place by a gigantic padlock, and dust covered it so completely that he had to wipe it away to be sure of what he was reading. Its label was just as cryptic as the others, hastily scribbled in a scrawl of handwriting he recognized dimly as his own.  
  
The others were coming, screeching with glee as they chased him down. He didn't have much time. If only they'd give him a moment…  
  
He reached out and touched the padlock.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The moon touched down on the horizon, and on the other side of the sky, the sun began to rise.  
  
Somewhere not too far away, the Shadow King began to laugh.  
  
And Remy's eyes snapped open.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Bobby woke from strange dreams he couldn't recall, and struggled from the bed, head feeling like it was filled with damp cotton.  
  
He pulled on his robe and hit the button to open the door to the hall, and stopped in surprise.  
  
Remy stalked down the hallway, eyes fixed straight ahead, not even pausing to glance at Bobby as he passed, though surely the cajun must have seen him.   
  
Bobby blinked. "Remy?"  
  
But he was already gone.  
  
Bobby harrumphed and tightened his robe around him. "And Lorna says _I'm_ cranky in the morning," he grumbled.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Lorna entered the storage room of the complex, humming tunelessly beneath her breath, mind occupied by the supplies she'd come to retrieve. Even with the rows fluorescent light it was dim in there, as if some sort of aura kept it darkened. Boxes and random items and equipment trailed off away from her in towering rows, and shadows pooled at their base, yawning into darkness toward the end of the low, narrow halls. Staring down them, it was all too easy to imagine the boogeyman of her childhood lurking around every corner, waiting for her to step right into his arms.  
  
She shook her head and stepped inside, pushing the ridiculous thought away.  
  
The door slid shut behind her as she stepped inside, and the thoughts she'd chuckled at a moment before returned with a vengeance, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. There was something down here, she was suddenly sure of it. There was a sound, more sensed than felt, the presence of another… she cocked her head to one side, eyes narrowing. And there was a smell, familiar but haunting, tickling at the edges of her mind.  
  
Fear fell to the wayside as warrior instincts took over. As if in a daze, she stepped forward, senses heightened with a sudden rush of adrenaline, every nerve standing on end as she strained to catch any sign of who the intruder might be.   
  
That smell… its name danced on the tip of her tongue, its memory loomed on a burgeoning wave…  
  
She rounded the corner.  
  
Remy crouched like a predator beneath a precarious tower of boxes, form steeped in shadows, his trench coat spread out around him like a living extension of his body. The dull orange glow of a cigarette flared in the darkness as he inhaled, the faint light illuminating his face for a brief moment. Smoke rose as the shadows eagerly reclaimed his features, leaving behind the twin embers of eyes; baleful crimson brilliance that glared hatred and eclipsed the tiny fire held between his lips.  
  
"Remy?" she whispered, her lips feeling suddenly dry.  
  
His eyes snapped up and focused on her and she was sorry she hadn't listened to her first instinct.  
  
He dropped the cigarette with a leisure that belied the menacing posture of his body, and rose to his feet with a whisper of leather like a phantom rising from the mist.  
  
"Sorry, Belle," he said, his voice smooth and gritty and dripping with acid. Every tone echoed menace, every syllable promised pain and torment beyond imagining. "Can't let you do dis."  
  
Terrified though she was, Lorna forced herself to hold her ground. This was her friend, her teammate. Surely he didn't mean to hurt her.  
  
She remained completely rational right up until the tip of his bo staff smashed into the bridge of her nose.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Rogue awoke with a start, unsure of where she was. She sat up, eyes blinking rapidly as they took in the room around her, and she leaped from her bed, turning to stare at it as if it were some kind of unsuspected enemy that had snuck up and stabbed her in the back.  
  
Her heart began to calm its frantic beating, freed at last from the molasses of her nightmares, and she pressed a hand to her chest, reassuring herself that she still breathed. Scattered images still raced through her mind, pieces of a terrible past she had wished a million times forgotten.  
  
_Ah'm okay. Everything's okay_, she thought.  
  
She lifted her eyes from the bed, reassured at last of where and who she was—and froze solid.  
  
Her image stared back at her from the mirror across the room, its expression frozen in a mask of horror she could barely feel on her own face. The body she saw was her own, and it shook and trembled with sheer terror.  
  
It was clad in the white and green uniform of the Brotherhood.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The shrill ring of the commlink interrupted Bobby's solitary breakfast, and he sank sulkily deeper into his bowl of oatmeal, hoping someone else would answer it.  
  
He spooned another mouthful of pasty, cinnamon flavored gruel into his mouth and swirled it around, swallowing in exasperation as the commlink continued to ring.  
  
He slammed the spoon into his bowl and rose from the table, carrying his oatmeal with him. If he was going to be interrupted by some kind of emergency, he was going to make sure that this time it didn't happen on an empty stomach.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
In the basement storage room, Remy leaned over the face of Lorna, one hand rubbing the stubble along his jawline.  
  
He stared down at the serene face and contemplated, hand tightening against his bo staff.  
  
"Sorry chere, but dis need to end, now."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Bobby clicked off the commlink and scraped up the last of his oatmeal.  
  
No emergencies today, he thought, rejoicing.  
  
He had barely swallowed when the alarms began to go off all over the complex.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Rogue hesitated only an instant, shaking fingers poised over the zipper of her old uniform. Then she rushed from the room.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Theresa Cassidy woke to the sound of alarms, and found herself in front of the computer database with no memory of what she had been doing or why she was there.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Eugene Judd did a backward handspring out of bed, coming up to face the Marauder who'd been about to kill him only seconds before.  
  
The empty room mocked him with the reverberating sound of alarms.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
In the basement, Remy paused, head coming up as the alarms began to sound. Something in that sound was familiar…  
  
He blinked and snapped to awareness, eyes wide and filling with horror as they looked back down to the woman who lay, unconscious on the floor below him.  
  
Blond hair wavered and shimmered, dissolving into green, and rounded features slimmed, cheekbones lowering just a notch.  
  
"Mon Dieu," he whispered.  
  
The bo staff fell from his hands and clattered to the floor.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Irineé  jumped up, immediately on guard and awake, fist crashing through the mirror of her room.  
  
The alarms sounded as she stared at her hand, watching the blood trickle from shallow cuts.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Jean-Luc awoke, moving from dream to reality almost seamlessly as the claxon of alarms played on.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Bobby's eyes narrowed on the monitor, and he pushed the button that would open the front door of the complex, his hand already up and ready to freeze the intruder where they stood.  
  
"You've got thirty seconds to explain yourself," he said, when no threat seemed imminent.  
  
The woman before him opened her mouth as if to speak, and then all hell broke loose.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Rogue rushed from the hallway in an outfit Bobby still had nightmares about, and other X-Men rushed from every corridor, their eyes bright and confused, the glint of madness in their eyes as if ready to attack without question. Irineé  and Jean-Luc entered last, their eyes dull and dazed, but no less ready for combat. He turned, questions rising to lips, and then forgot what he had been about to say as Remy emerged from the basement, carrying Lorna's limp body in his arms.  
  
"What the hell happened?" he exclaimed, rushing to take her pliant body from his teammate.  
  
"I'm… I'm sorry," Remy said, and Bobby understood two things in that moment. One, Remy was responsible for Lorna's state, and two, he was damned lucky that the alarms had gone off or she'd be in a lot worse state than she was right now.   
  
"What the devil is going on?" Rogue demanded, emerald eyes suspicious as they flickered back and forth between Bobby and her estranged husband.  
  
And from behind them, forgotten, the delicate figure of a woman stepped through the doorway, dark hair disheveled, blue eyes bright despite their obvious exhaustion.  
  
She spoke in a tone that seemed altogether too reasonable for the chaos that had descended on them.  
  
"Perhaps I can explain."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Get. Out," Rogue said, advancing on the woman. "For all we know, you're responsible for all this."  
  
Veronica Hayes' lips curled in a sardonic smile that neither confirmed nor denied Rogue's words. "True. But send me away now and you'll lose valuable information."  
  
Rogue seemed not to hear the woman as she put her hands against Veronica's chest and pushed her back through the doorway.  
  
"I know why your husband's alive," Veronica said, voice quiet as she met the other woman's scalding gaze.  
  
Rogue's eyes widened, and she ceased to breathe, backing up a step as the words hit her with the force of a slap.  
  
"What?"  
  
And then Remy stepped between them, pupils swirling like the red storm on Jupiter against the black backdrop of his eyes. They bore into her with promise and pain, and she was reminded that this time, he _was_ at full power.  
  
"Talk fast, chere."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"I am Doctor Veronica Hayes, top consultant and head scientist on a project to create a robot that could travel through time. The project was based specifically on a robot you all may be familiar with, called Nimrod."  
  
"A Sentinel," Rogue hissed, eyes narrowing. "You created another Sentinel and you got the nerve to come walkin' through our door?"  
  
"I never claimed to be your friend; I merely said I have information," Veronica replied with a faint smile. "Think of me as a reluctant ally."  
  
"Ah'm gonna be thinkin' of you as a smear on the floor if you don't get ta the point soon."  
  
Veronica took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. "We were to send the robot back in time. But time travel is tricky at best. It requires a disturbance in the time/space continuum to focus on if one expects any kind of accuracy. Great expenditures of energy provide the best focal point to achieve such a goal. Time and space seem to bend around such events, leaving the stream malleable, open to change. In short, the friction and vibration of molecules, at an extremely heightened level, seems to actually punch a hole in time/space. In human terms, this would require the equivalent of a nuclear explosion. Lacking a nuclear explosion within the time frame we needed, we focused instead on an equivalent explosion of mutant design."  
  
Rogue started visibly, and she looked to Remy, but he only stood, staring at Veronica with flat, calculating eyes, arms folded over his chest.  
  
"We sent Nimrod II back in time to the point where the mutant known as Gambit attempted to destroy the mutant known as Sinister. It seemed simple enough at the time. What we didn't count on was the temporal transference that occurred."  
  
"Temporal transference?" Rogue asked, her voice sounding sharp despite the distance of her shock.  
  
"We calculated as precisely as we could. But because we could only track Gambit's biorhythm in that very moment, we had to focus on him. Because he was about to die, Nimrod II's presence would affect nothing, and time/space would be barely concerned as the vacuum wouldn't last more than a millisecond before Nimrod II's form replaced Remy's—almost tricking the time stream into not noticing, as it were." She cleared her throat, and tried not roll her eyes at their looks of confusion. "We meant to send Nimrod II back in time to the moment of a split second following Gambit and Sinister's deaths, altering the time stream as little as possible," she clarified. "But we calculated a millisecond too soon, and because the space had to be vacated for Nimrod II to appear… well, we ended up with a transference instead."  
  
"I t'ink you'd better repeat dat in English, chere."  
  
"What I mean is," Veronica said with a sigh, "that two separate pieces of matter cannot exist simultaneously in the same place." And still, they stared at her, looking blank. "Even time has rules. I can't exist in the same space as this coffee cup," she said, motioning to the mug Bobby had set down nearby. "It's a paradox that time cannot abide. The whole timestream would collapse, and even something as un-sentient as time does its best to keep such things from happening. So, Nimrod II took Gambit's place just a split second before his death would have occurred, and Gambit was sent forward in time, right to the spot where we had launched Nimrod II from. For lack of a better way to explain, they 'switched places'. It was a very fascinating lesson in the way that time works," she added.  
  
The X-Men stood and stared at her, wordless.  
  
"I was there when he died," Rogue said, her voice cold and ragged. "I was linked to his mind. I felt him die, felt the last star of his mind wink out." She paused, took a deep breath, banished the tears from her voice. "He was dead."  
  
"Originally, yes," Veronica agreed with a slight incline of her head. "But now, it seems more likely that you felt his mind disappear as it was yanked forward in the time stream."  
  
Rogue shook her head, mouth opening and closing like a dying fish.  
  
"He was inches from death when he teleported in. We nursed him back to health, healed him."  
  
"Out of the goodness of your heart, Ah'm sure," Rogue snapped.  
  
"No," Veronica disagreed with a sudden smile. "On the orders of my superior."  
  
"But… why?" Rogue asked, eyes searching the Doctor's, all semblance of anger gone now. She was desperate for answers, and it might have touched Veronica's heart once, long ago, when she was young and still believed in truth and hope.  
  
"I have no idea how you people remain so naïve," Veronica said with a shake of her head. "My superior's motives were less than noble, I assure you. Plan A failed, Nimrod II failed, thanks to some sabotage by my mutant assistant. So we went to Plan B, namely, divide and conquer. Time travel erases memory. Language, basic teachings, these things remain, because they are timeless and absolute. Understandings that exist as a basic structure, separate from the sense of self. But the sense of self is malleable, based on experience and the passing of time. When one travels within time, the sense of self is lost because the linear process of events and experiences has been changed. The loss of memory is temporary as the mind reasserts itself and finds its place in the time stream, but nonetheless complete." She paused, considered. "Unless one is very experienced in the workings of the mind."  
  
Remy turned on her slowly, red eyes like fire as they leveled on her. "So you sent me here to manipulate everyone else, shake dem up, throw dem off course."  
  
"We knew what would happen, yes. We were very aware of the relationship that has developed between the mutant called Magneto and Rogue," Veronica said with a nod at the mutant female. "And of the problems it would cause with the children and the entire team. It was our superior's hope that the entire team would be ripped apart by your presence, leaving them open to further manipulation."  
  
Remy's eyes flickered uncertainly to Rogue as he processed what the Doctor had said about Magneto, but he hardly had time for that now. "You used me. Played with my life," he said, advancing a step closer to her, eyes seeming to burn right through her.  
  
"Yes," Veronica replied, voice steady. "But you were only Plan B. Something we didn't plan on, that fell into our laps."  
  
Rogue reached out, put a hand on Remy's shoulder, stopping him. Her eyes were wide with sudden knowledge.  
  
"What was Plan A?"  
  
"The assassination of the mutant known as Magneto in the year 2004, before he became the up and coming powerful figure in politics that he is now. Of course, we would have preferred to take him out before the unfortunate events concerning the Shadow King's possession occurred, but our mutant history records are not as complete prior to that date. So we had to settle for what we could get."  
  
"But… why?" Rogue was baffled. "He wasn't a threat to ya'll anymore. He wasn't possessed anymore."  
  
"No. But his political standing and the movement of the Mutant Council towards mainstream acceptance was a threat. Cut off the head and the body falls."  
  
"The more things change, the more they stay the same," Bobby muttered.  
  
"Mutant hatred," Theresa accused. "That's your reason for all this? Fear that we might become accepted as part of the human race?"  
  
"You're not human," Veronica countered, voice icy.  
  
"Neither are you, lady," Bobby said, shaking his head.  
  
"There was another very good reason for taking out the mutant called Magneto," Veronica added, a sudden, sardonic smile creeping to her lips. "Not that it matters anymore."  
  
"What do you mean?" Rogue asked, advancing a step on the woman.  
  
"I mean," Veronica said, voice slow and very succinct, "that he has become the Shadow King again."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Rogue stood open-mouthed, rage and anger coursing through her like a living thing. In the face of all the conspiracy she had just witnessed, this was the absolute worst. "Lies," she hissed. "That's impossible. We killed the Shadow King a long time ago."  
  
"We've been tracking the mutant known as Magneto as much as we could. Biorhythm's are tricky; they don't give you an absolute location, but they can be found. Magneto's changed just recently, right after the launch of Nimrod II, just slightly. It changed again last time I checked on him, and he had changed immensely in the time span of a single day. My partner was able to locate the source of energy as being in New York, simply because it was so large and powerful. Plan C was located in New York City, the last temptation of Magneto, so to speak, but I think the Shadow King is the reason it didn't come to pass. I believe his contact there in New York led the Shadow King to my superior and corrupted him. That's why I fled. And faced with the threat of the Shadow King… well, there was only one place I could think of to come," she finished with a shrug.  
  
All the X-Men were reeling.  
  
"No," Rogue said, but her voice was weak, lacking conviction. The slight change; that had been the transference to Joseph's body, and the major transformation… No. This woman had to be lying. But it fit. It all fit.  
  
"The very fact that I found your secret complex should tell you I had an in," she went on, voice like smooth glass as she interjected on Rogue's thoughts.   
  
Joseph's body; the Shadow King's back-up in case Magneto's body ever failed.  
  
"Remy told us everything he knew before we sent him back to the very room he claimed was his own."   
  
Magneto was in New York. He'd been having headaches…  
  
"I have no reason to lie about any of this," Veronica went on.  
  
The dreams. Her costume. Rogue's mind raced. Her eyes locked briefly with every X-Man in the room, and she saw the same fears, the same nightmares reflected there.  
  
Ororo shook her head, slow and resolute. "It is impossible. I was there when we killed him."  
  
"The dreams," Irineé  breathed. Her green eyes searched the faces of the others, hoping for confirmation. "That's what the dreams were about."  
  
Ororo's face collapsed, hope dying still-born.  
  
"We've all had them?" Rogue asked, looking around. Silent, mournful faces nodded in accord.  
  
"Damn," she muttered, turning away. "Well, at least we have a little bit of time."  
  
"Uh…" Bobby spoke up, sounding regretful. "No we don't. Magnus contacted me a little while ago to tell me they were en route home."  
  
Rogue opened her mouth, about to ask how much time they had left, plan already beginning to formulate in her mind. Too late, too late.  
  
The floor shook and the walls reverberated with the sound of jet engines.  
  
The Blackbird was home.  
  
  



	14. Chapter 13: Eclipse

_Howling winds keep screaming round  
And the rain comes pouring down  
Doors are locked and bolted now  
As the thing crawls into town  
  
Straight out of hell  
One of a kind  
Stalking his victim  
Don't look behind you  
  
Nightcrawler  
Beware the beast in black  
Nightcrawler  
You know he's coming back  
Nightcrawler  
  
            ~Nightcrawler, Judas Priest  
_  
  
CHAPTER 13: ECLIPSE  
  
"Does this place have a back door?" Veronica asked, cool blue eyes filling with sudden, liquid panic.  
  
"Escape tunnels through the cliff face," Rogue replied, her voice distant, mind working furiously.  
  
"We're going to run?" Jean-Luc demanded, angry.  
  
"Well, let's see," Bobby spoke up, his voice bordering on sardonic. "The Master of Magnetism, who swatted us around like flies before he turned hero, has been taken over by the Shadow King—one of the most powerful telepaths ever—which means the two most powerful and experienced telepaths on earth have probably been possessed, too, with the Phoenix power as an added bonus. Logan is impossible to kill; our best hand-to-hand fighter and the most deadly, with Colossus coming in second for damage." He looked around at the remaining team members and crooked a humorless smile. "We're good and all, but I'm not loving our chances."  
  
Jean-Luc turned pale, and Rogue cut Bobby a nasty glance filled with seething anger and helplessness.  
  
"We run," she agreed with a tight, reluctant nod. "For now."  
  
"Oh, I don't think so," came a teasing voice laced with hatred thick as molasses and a lust for pain that bordered on psychotic.  
  
Rogue turned as if in slow motion, and saw Kitty standing behind her daughter, one arm wrapped around the girl's slim midsection, the other grabbing her chin and twisting it at an awkward angle.  
  
"You die," Kitty contradicted and twisted Irineé's head even further to the side. "Forever."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Irineé concentrated, drawing together all her rage, her pain, her hatred, into one thin beam filled with razor sharp teeth and barbed wire. She lashed out with her mind, with the mercurial speed of thought—and slipped through the molecules of Kitty's mind like oil.  
  
"Nice try, little girl. Can't hit what isn't there, though," Kitty said, her voice a gleeful chuckle.  
  
Irineé whimpered as her neck turned another, painful inch, and she heard the vertebrae in her spine crack.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Dazzler grit her teeth and narrowed her field of vision, concentrating on the flex of solid muscle, the shape of vicious fingers as they cut into the flesh of a young face, and focused her power in a straight, solid line of outraged retribution.  
  
Kitty screamed and fell back, smoking rising from a ragged hole in her forearm before she vanished through the floor, her face twisted in anguish.  
  
And then the world became a blur, everything happening too fast for her to follow.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Lorna faced off with Logan as he burst in, using her magnetic power to levitate above the reach of his fists. Still weak from her ordeal with the Blackbird, she focused the remainder of her power on him, picking him up and throwing him like a baseball through several walls of the complex.  
  
She craned her neck and peered through the smoking wreckage of the walls, nerves singing on edge, alert for any sign of movement, praying that he had been knocked out with concussive force.   
  
She was completely unaware of the person coming up behind her until the moment the fist struck the base of her neck.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The air was alive with howling winds and monsoon rains, and high above it all, Storm rode the waves like a dark Goddess, eyes white with flaring power. Electricity crackled around her body, lacing her in eager, delicate purple-white, and then leaped from her in a blinding flash of energy.  
  
Caught unprepared, Madelyne fell to the floor, smoke trailing from her mouth and nose, flesh still sizzling.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Bobby turned just in time to see Lorna go down, flying forward with the force of a punch to meet the floor with the sickening crunch of crumpled limbs. Green hair trailed out, shot through with strains of blood like a dying Christmas tree.  
  
Bobby's mind went blank and his vision blurred with crimson as pure rage sang in his veins. The power of glaciers flew from his fingertips and the air sang with the crackle of metal as it hardened and contracted with fine, hairline cracks.  
  
A moment later, Colussus was nothing more than a statue, still frozen in the position his punch had carried him to, arm extended, covered in rimes of frost. Metal glittered with swirls of ice that made him shimmer like some strange, exotic ornament, giving away nothing of the deadly temperature his body now existed in.  
  
"If I were you," Bobby said through gritted teeth, "I wouldn't shiver."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Jean-Luc didn't know which way to turn. The world was a smoking, raining ruin where people crashed into each other and through walls with incredible force, and for a long moment, there seemed to be nothing for him to do.  
  
And then the world seemed to catch fire; a bright, screaming bird of unimaginable power flexed its wings and talons within the confines of the room.  
  
_The __Phoenix__.__  
_  
_Don't struggle, child_, she sent, and through the flames she stepped toward him, face serene and lovely, long legs taking sure strides through the wreckage of the room. She was peace, and comfort, and love. _You were made for lighter things._  
  
He stood in awe of her; the landscape of her mind, the beauty of her features, the smooth glow that suffused her with knowledge and wisdom. She touched him with the sweet lightness of fingers that lifted his chin, forcing him to stare into the inferno of her soul.  
  
Worlds opened in the chasms of her eyes, and universes danced in her irises, the light of stars and the life of millions of planets caught in their depths.  
  
She was fire.  
  
And life incarnate.  
  
Now and forever.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Rogue's fist slammed into Jean's face with the force of a bullet. Red hair flew, and deeper crimson flecked the air as her head snapped backward, fingers slipping from Jean-Luc's face as she stumbled backward.  
  
"I beat you before," Rogue said, and though there were no sibilants in her words, she hissed them. Rough fingers fumbled over the skin of Jean's face, reaching into the secret dimensions of the telepath's mind and pulling.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Irineé fell to the floor, gasping for breath and grabbing at her neck, desperately trying to assure herself that it wasn't broken.  
  
"You all right, chere?" Remy asked, crimson eyes flaring bright against their black velvet backdrop.  
  
She took a shaky breath and tried to nod. Reassured that her head was still attached when pain shot through the tendons of her neck, she nodded with more certainty.  
  
Remy gave a searching glance toward the chaos of the room. Rain plastered his unruly hair to his face, covering most of his features, and she couldn't see the grim smile that twisted its way over his face.  
  
"We need to get you out of here. Where de tunnels your momma talked about?"  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Fire flickered with dim light around the edge of Rogue's form and Jean's brilliance began to fade. The telepath howled with outrage at what was being done to her, and she gathered her telekinetic ability to send Rogue shooting out and away from her, planning to crush her body against the stack of equipment on the far side of the room.  
  
Rogue's face shivered with a deadly grin, picking up the thought easily now as she absorbed Jean inch by inch.  
  
"Go ahead," she taunted, fingers digging deep into the flesh of Jean's cheeks and jaw line, her breath a guttural whisper more felt than heard against the plane of Jean's cheek.  
  
"But I'll take your face with me."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Storm saw him first as he entered, feet dangling more than a foot above the floor as he soared in, face arranged in a malicious expression of glee that no human should have been capable of.  
  
She'd waited forever for this.  
  
Lightning poured from her in a steady wave, purple giving way to pure blinding white as she gave herself to the fury of the skies, a living conduit of rage.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Puck bounded forward and launched himself with both feet at the chest of the Master of Magnetism.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Heady with power, filled with burning, livid, anger, Storm had no time to call back the onslaught she'd unleashed.  
  
"Puck! No!"  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Siryn had stood, patiently awaiting her turn as the battle was met. Blood and fist and bone and mutant power, and she had only one gift, one moment to give. She meant to make it count.  
  
She watched as Puck leaped as if in slow motion, his squat, heavily muscled form extending to its full length as it arched through the air toward their most deadly enemy, saw the lightning as it left Ororo's body, on a deadly collision course.  
  
Her lips parted. The rest of the world had gone silent, still spinning in an endless, eternal moment. Everything was muffled and far away, blurred and unimportant, and her mouth opened with a wet sound that resonated like music in her ears.  
  
Her voice poured through her throat like the sultry creatures of temptation she'd been named for, rising like slow, liquid fire from her chest and streaming forth with the force of lava and broken glass.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
For an instant, there was pain as the high-pitched scream filled the room, its sound heavy and full, filling his head with molten lead.  
  
For an instant, his magnetic shield, formed by the very waves he commanded and microscopic particles of mineral, wavered.  
  
For a split-second, there was nothing but pain, howling high above the feel of molten lead, vibrantly alive as lightning danced over the tapestry of his flesh and into his brain.   
  
"NO!" The Shadow King screamed and fell to his knees.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
A single instant, one high pitched note that was the climax of Siryn's otherwise silent symphony; one second, two, three…  
  
And then sickness seemed to creep through her, clogging her throat, poisoning her mind, and her voice wavered, falling with the crackling sound of a dying fire.  
  
"Probability's a bitch," the Scarlet Witch said, pressing a finger to her own smirking mouth in mockery of Siryn's silence.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Rogue's fingers trembled against the skin of Jean's face, thumbs digging deep for purchase as Siryn's scream filled her mind. Her teeth clicked together, nearly severing the tip of her tongue, and the taste of brilliant copper flooded her mouth.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The globe of power around the Shadow King wavered, flickered, and then solidified, and time caught back up.  
  
White light exploded around him in the shape of an orb, tendrils lightning crackling and hissing around its edges.  
  
A body arced towards it, its form beautiful with the freeform of airborne acrobatics, hands reaching out, heroism in its heart.  
  
Eugene Milton Judd never knew what hit him.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"No!" Storm's scream was short, abbreviated in its anguish, and in an instant, the monsoon rains stopped, the winds ceased, and she slumped to the floor, head cradled in her hands.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Jean-Luc shook his head as if emerging from a trance. For a moment, there had been peace and beauty… and then…  
  
A scream like a wake for dead souls, vibrating in his mind, drilling through the corridors and cleansing them of everything else.  
  
Where had he been? What was he doing?  
  
His vision cleared, and his eyes fell on his mother who lay before him, her fingertips digging into Jean's face so deeply that he wondered she had not drawn blood.  
  
This was all wrong.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Almost lost you," Rogue hissed, blood fanning from the corners of her mouth as she bore down on Jean.  
  
She felt her son's awareness brush against her, and breathed a sigh of relief that he was all right.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Jean-Luc reached into the villain's mind and cut her strings like a puppet.  
  
Her body sagged and relaxed, and he tilted his head at it with a malignant grin.  
  
"Sorry…" he rolled his head back and forth across his shoulders, feeling the vertebrae crackle with power and energy.  
  
"Mom."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Mom!" Irineé screamed, lurching forward towards her mother's fallen body.  
  
"Non, chere," Remy said, pulling her back through the debris by the heel of her foot. "We have to go."  
  
"We have to get Mom," she said, craning her face to look at him. Dirt and ash smeared the perfect, lovely curves of her face, her pale hair wet and disheveled around the comparable paleness of her features. But her green eyes were still gorgeous and true, piercing straight through him to the core of his heart.  
  
Was he always this much of a sucker for feminine distress?  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Storm felt her mind cloud and darken, like the weather she called to her.  
  
_Long have I waited for this, Ororo Munroe.  
_  
Her mind panes of sadness down which tears of regret poured like rain, she barely heard him above the storm in her own mind.  
  
_I have taken the life of an innocent.  
_  
_And you will take many, many more in my name_, he replied, entering her.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Lorna?" Bobby whispered. His voice trembled on the syllables of her name, broke on them like waves upon the beach, passion utterly defeated by the solid reality of packed sand.  
  
He ran his fingers through the deep green of her hair and came out bloody, red stains painting his fingertips.  
  
"No," he whispered, bowing his head to the safety of her hair, wanting it to encompass and protect him. She still smelled of shampoo and the scent that was utterly her own; a deep musk that stirred his soul and haunted his dreams.  
  
Green eyes fluttered open, and he sobbed into her cheek, unseeing.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Stupid, Southern mudrat," Jean grated out, her lips curling in a snarl. "I can still feel you in here, sneaking around the corners of my mind."  
  
Rogue's body flew across the room with almost the full power of Jean's telekinetic ability.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Don't worry, lover," Lorna rasped, turning her face to Bobby's. Her cheek brushed his and he drew back, blue eyes wide with wonder.  
  
"Lorna?"  
  
"I wouldn't leave you behind," she said, and pulled him down into a deep kiss, fingers digging deep into the short strands of his dirty-blond hair.  
  
Her hand cupped the curve at the back of his skull and her tongue explored the ridges of his mouth, tasting teeth and tongue. She licked at the edges of his soul and pulled him down, draining him with the passion of her kiss. He was hers, utterly and completely; ever had been.  
  
And now, they both belonged to the Shadow King.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Lasher crept up behind the Shadow King, calculating whether or not his electric tendrils could pierce the veil of magnetism the other held up like a shield.  
  
The room was humid with Storm's rain, and his stone-like skin sweated with the effects.  
  
A little push here, a bend there… he thought he might be able to punch through.  
  
The skin that had prevented him from knowing the pleasure of touch, from the stroke and affection of love and many other weapons, offered him no protection as a set of adamantium claws pierced his back.  
  
He gasped and stared down at the three twinkling points as they burst through his chest, and had a moment to think that something had broken through and touched his heart after all…  
  
And then he was falling down an endless corridor of black that called his name like the waves of the ocean, drowning him in a final embrace.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *            
  
Rogue's body bounced off the stack of equipment, sending it thundering to the floor with a deafening crash.  
  
"Well," Remy said, cocking his head to one side as he surveyed the situation. He reached out and hooked an arm around Rogue's waist, pulling her close. Her body was pliant, dead weight in his arms, and he shuddered. "Dat makes t'ings a little easier."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Jean-Luc turned, his eyes glowing a bright red as he reached out with one hand and caught Siryn's chin with invisible force, pushing it up with raw will.  
  
"I won't serve your master," she spat with venom, eyes narrowing in defiance.  
  
"Oh, but you will," Jean-Luc breathed, pushing her face up even further as he yanked on the strings of her mind and will. "And you'll love every second."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"Jean-Luc," Irineé choked, her voice cracked with tears.  
  
"He's lost," she said, turning her face toward Remy's, tears streaking her countenance with a gleam that broke his heart.  
  
Remy spared a glance toward the son he didn't remember and shook his head. "We have to go, chere. Now." His voice was filled with the steel of resolve and the ghost of regret.  
  
"I know," she said, and bowed her head, pressing her lips tight against the tide that threatened.  
  
He grabbed her hand, and then they were running.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Their retreat did not go unnoticed.  
  
The Shadow King raised one of his hands, calling the magnetic power of his vessel home.  
  
"No!" Jean-Luc shouted, pointing in a different direction entirely. "She's there!"  
  
The telepathic illusion of Irineé running dissipated as magnetic force hit it, wavering and falling apart like the heat waves of a mirage.  
  
The Shadow King turned his eyes in the direction Jean-Luc pointed, raising his hand again.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
She was the last. It wasn't knowledge that gave her any kind of comfort or satisfaction, it simply was.  
  
From the front lines of the X-Men to the front lines of another world entirely and back again, she had risked her life; bled and laid down her life alongside others who were willing to die for what they believed. She had spent nearly fourteen years back with the X-Men, and Alison Blaire still wasn't sure if she believed in anything at all.  
  
No, that wasn't entirely true. She just didn't know if she believed in anything _good_ anymore.  
  
They were all enraptured, or running away, and she was the last.  
  
She took a deep breath in a moment that existed out of time, and her lungs filled with the smell of memory. The scent and feel of long blond hair through her fingers, over her face.  
  
Was there anything worth living for?  
  
Her eyes snapped up and focused on the Shadow King; Magneto's body, his hand rising, power shooting from his fingertips.  
  
Yes, there was one thing.  
  
Her legs still ran, a marvel of athletic skill, still kicked and spun as she twisted her way through the debris toward her target; the space of the breath she had stolen, the beat of a heart.  
  
She was still alive, still her own. And there was one thing worth living for. One thing, alone.  
  
Revenge.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The magnetic force hit her with the force of a cannonball, and her body twitched, convulsing once as it clenched in upon itself.  
  
She fell to the floor, life and awareness fading fast, running out like sand between her fingers. And still she was alive, and she was her own, if even for the last few moments accorded her.  
  
She was her own, and no one would take that from her.  
  
She struggled to breathe, her chest crushed, her limbs destroyed, and she wondered at the lack of pain. Perhaps there was a mercy, a divinity in death that she hadn't realized. The thought carried her forward, further into the embrace of blackness.  
  
Above, Magneto's form loomed, eyes red and burning with hatred and incomprehensible anger, and she smiled to see it.  
  
"I'll save you," he said, reading her thoughts as they tumbled out like confetti from a paper cup. "I'll make you the most monstrous of us all."  
  
"No," she gasped, and shook her head, her face still painted with the grace of serenity.  
  
"How dare you mock me now, when I have you within my grasp," the Shadow King said, his face curling into the semblance of a smile. "I will own you, Alison, and when I am done, you will _wish_ you had died."  
  
"No," she said again and grinned, blood staining her teeth deep red.   
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Nearly forgotten, completely unseen, Remy paused by the secret door in the wall as Irineé scampered past him, Rogue's unconscious body still held tight in his arms.  
  
Dazzler's words carried to him as if meant for him alone, and their sound was the breaking of a symphony over the clouded veil of his mind. Violins rose in high discord, shivering with timeliness, and though he could not lay name to the tune which he suddenly recalled, he knew its meaning, and its end.  
  
"Non," he whispered.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Alison tilted her head back and eased her broken jaw, sighing with relief.  
  
"Release me," she whispered.  
  
The Shadow King's eyes widened, almost struck with hilarity by the strange request.  
  
"I'm already dead," she said, and shuddered.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Remy pushed Rogue through the panel into Irineé's waiting arms and turned back, his eyes burned down to the dull red of dried blood now.  
  
He knew he needed to go, that he needed to leave this place or be possessed or killed, himself. And still he leaned against the panel, his chest heaving, his eyes indecisive.  
  
There was one thing he had to do first. A debt that owed repaying.  
  
Bitter tears rose in his eyes, and he closed them against the feeling, all too aware of the trails they traced over the curve of his cheek.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"I saved you," Alison whispered, the words a racking of distant pain that she nearly felt.  
  
And the Shadow King looked up; remembering that he'd lost the target he'd been aiming for, remembering his purpose here.  
  
"Now save _me_," she said, and closed her eyes, a single tear trailing from the corner of one lid.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
With a rending of mind and soul, a three-foot length of pipe flew from the shadows, its rounded edges limned in bright pinkish-purple, and the Shadow King rose and stepped back.  
  
He needn't have. It wasn't meant for him.  
  
The pipe pierced Alison Blaire's side, plunging through her chest and skewering her heart.  
  
She laid hold of the slim length and pulled it close, smiling even as she died.  
  
Her body exploded mere seconds later, shrapnel flying from the broken pipe, flesh and blood painting a grisly ideogram over the Shadow King's magnetic field.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Bobby's head rose from the tangled confusion of Lorna's lips, his eyes filled with sudden tears.  
  
"Alison… no!"  
  
He trembled, nearly broke from her, but Lorna pulled him back, turning his face to look at her, her eyes deep and voluminous.  
  
He gazed deep, and fell back into their depths.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
On the other side of the wall, Remy paused, his head bowed, face still slicked by falling tears.  
  
"Thank you, chere," he whispered to the woman he had hardly known.  
  
Irineé held his hand, her silent tears mirroring his own.   
  
"She shouldn't have… we could have…" her voice trailed off into faint sobs.  
  
"She did it for us, cherie," Remy said, reaching out and cupping her face in his hands. "We can't let it be in vain, non?"  
  
Irineé's face crumpled with tears and she shook with a racking sob, her head bowing low with the force of it.  
  
"Chere?"  
  
"No," she said, raising her tear-streaked face to him. The pain there was palpable, and Remy wanted nothing more than to reach out and wipe it away, soothe her with the touch of his hands; make all this okay, somehow.  
  
"We can't," she agreed with a short, tight nod.  
  
A child raised and weaned on war… oh how he wished he could save her from all this. And yet, somehow, he was vaguely proud of her. Of her strength, her determination despite the loss of her brother and teammates.  
  
He wished he could remember that she was his. But it was enough right now to know that she was.  
  
They ran, carrying Rogue with them.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The Shadow King wiped away the few remnants of blood and flesh that had fallen upon him before he'd gotten his shield up.  
  
Gleaming red eyes traced through the darkness, trying to locate the place from where the pipe had come.  
  
Nothing. There was nothing. Not a trace.  
  
But he would find them, oh yes. No one deserved his hatred and vengeance more than the ones who had escaped. He would have them kneel before him, or he would see them dead.  
  
One way or the other.  
  
  



	15. Chapter 14: The Hunt

CHAPTER 14: THE HUNT

_I am one as you are three  
Try to find messiah in your trinity  
Your city to burn  
Your city to burn_

_I Am One, Smashing Pumpkins_

_

* * *

_Rogue awoke in darkness with her head on fire, synapses a riot of pain from Jean's mental punch. 

_Must be alive. Couldn't be in this much pain an' not be. Now Ah just have to figure out— _

A split second, her son's shivering awareness against hers, welcome and warm and she was so relieved that he was alive and okay. And then pain like acid fire through her neural pathways as they exploded into blackness, and it hadn't been Jean at all, it had been—

"Jean-Luc!" she cried out, sitting up suddenly. The world swam in and out of focus, turning gray, and she nearly fell backward again.

"Chere." The voice was hoarse and rasped with a sorrow she was just beginning to feel, and she felt his hands reach for her, tangle in her matted hair as he helped her sit up.

"Jean-Luc?" she asked, not quite able to help herself from leaning against him.

Remy bowed his head against hers, and she could feel him tremble beneath the thin, wet cover of his clothing. "Shadow King got 'im, chere. We tried. I'm sorry."

"Then we'll get him back," she snapped, voice harsh as she shook off his embrace and tried to rise to her feet. Her legs swayed and trembled beneath her, and Remy was there, somehow in that utter, pitch blackness, to catch her when she fell.

"Irineé?" she asked, her voice weak and flagging with despair.

"She made it out wit' us," Remy said, and she could hear in his voice that he was glad to be able to give her that much, at least. "She's gone to find de lights in dis place." He paused another moment, and then answered the question that had been trembling on the tip of her tongue, the one she'd not quite dared to ask.

"Jus' de t'ree of us, now."

And suddenly Rogue remembered it all, every horrifying second. "We have ta keep movin'," she said, trying to keep the tremor from her voice. "The others know about these tunnels. They'll find us."

She couldn't see his face in the darkness, but she could almost imagine the way it would tighten with anger and frustration; could see it in her mind clear as memory.

"I know, chere. But we got to wait for her. Figure we got a few minutes before dey figure out where we went."

She nodded, knowing she wouldn't leave Irineé despite that the girl could have found them with her telepathy. She relaxed into Remy's arms with a sob, tears slipping from behind her eyes in a mixture of exhaustion and terror. Jean-Luc, gone, claimed by the Shadow King. And Magnus, oh, Magnus. Even if they survived and he became himself again, could he ever forgive himself for what had happened?

"Don' cry, chere," Remy whispered, and hugged her closer. "We be all right."

Rogue snorted a brittle laugh through her tears, despite herself, and shook her head. "There's only the three of us left, Remy, against the most powerful of our teammates and the Shadow King himself. We barely defeated him before, and it took all of us to do it."

There was a moment of silence as Remy pondered that, and Rogue felt as if she were sinking into the floor, defeat crushing against her like a leaden weight, her limbs weak and useless, head lolling against his shoulder as she waited for the inevitable.

"Don' give up yet, chere. 'Tween de t'ree of us, I figure de enemy ought t' be sayin' dere prayers."

She sniffled another, quieter laugh, something deep inside her calmed by his easy, devil-may-care humor. He'd always had this way of easing her, of making her feel safe no matter what was happening, and though deep down she knew it was nothing more than bravado and false hope, she let it come within her and wash over her aching, tired soul in a slow, smooth wave. Her sobs leveled out slowly and subsided, tears drying up, and she wondered for a moment if it was his humor or simple shock that was settling in. And with that awareness, she was suddenly, acutely, painfully reminded of Remy's arms locked around her, the warmth of his body against her, the slow inhale and exhale of his breath, the rhythmic beating of his heart, the very scent of him that she had known only in memory for the last six and half years. She could feel his cheek pressed against her hair, his lips warm and soft against her forehead, and she found herself turning toward him—partly out of instinct and partly out of a need for comfort—her mouth seeking his in the encompassing blackness.

The lights clicked on.

Rogue's eyes fluttered and opened, protesting the light. Small, dim bulbs beneath plastic domes ran down the length of the rock walls as far as one could see, but she didn't care about those right now, deep emerald irises locked with burning crimson ones in the sudden, revealing light.

A wordless moment passed, gazes locked, thoughts each their own, mouths only a few inches apart. Neither moved nor dared to speak, as if afraid to break the silence, and after a short span of time that felt like eternity in Rogue's mind, Remy's eyes went misty and distant, their focus if not their gaze leaving her face behind.

"I remembered somet'in' while I was sleepin'," Remy said, his eyes still distant and dreaming. "I remembered I had another wife, Belladonna, Belle… I t'ought she was coming back to ruin everyt'ing. I t'ought Lorna was her… I almost… killed her. I went down to de storage room to find my t'ings… like I was in some kind of trance… found my trench coat, my cigarettes, all de t'ings you packed away, chere." His eyes rose to search Rogue's face, and she could barely stand to meet them.

"I remember her, chere. Remember cat's eyes and golden hair and heartless, cold cruelty like no other. My wife," he proclaimed, voice deep and bitter, and shook his head. "I remember her…" his eyes focused on her again and she mourned for the sadness she saw there. "But not you."

She reached up to touch him, trying not to let the pain his words brought cut too deep into her heart. "It was the Shadow King, Remy. He got inside all our dreams, made us see and think things that weren't real."

He nodded, as if to say he understood. "Don' matter why it happened, chere. Got me t'inkin', dough. Wonderin' if mebbe my other wife was like that, den mebbe…" he trailed off and finally looked down, as if defeated, as if unable to finish his sentence.

Rogue reached out and lifted his chin up, bringing his eyes up to hers again. And oh, it hurt to think what he was thinking, to know in her heart that he still didn't love her, or remember her, or even trust her. And yet his arms were around her, whole and real after almost seven years, and no matter how much it hurt, she had to say something.

"Wonderin' if maybe Ah was like her, too? If maybe this whole thing with your family is a… lie," she stumbled over the word, and forced herself to go on. "Or a trick, or somethin' awful ya can't remember yet?"

He nodded again, and her heart folded in on itself like a paper flower.

She began to pull from his embrace, tears flowing to the forefront again, struggling to maintain her composure as she nodded in reply. "Ah understand. Ah—"

He stopped her, pulled her close again, put his hand against her cheek and looked down at her with eyes that hadn't looked at her like that in years; eyes that took her breath away and made her feel like an awkward gawky, sixteen year old girl all over again.

He ran his thumb along her lower lip and slowly shook his head. "But even dough I can't help but t'ink dat… you're not like dat, are you chere?" His voice was slow and filled with soft wonder. "I don't know who you are, or how we were toget'r, but I know you not like dat. I can see how much you… you care 'bout me. Dat's real, even if not'in else is. An' even dough I can't remember my daddy's name or where I grew up, I got a feelin' ain't too many people cared 'bout me like dat in my life."

"Remy…" she felt all the breath leave her body, felt herself melt into his arms, her will, her memory, all thoughts of battle and everything else blotted out by his words, by having him so near.

She reached up and cupped his face between her hands, rising up to meet his mouth and—

The sound of footsteps pounded up the corridor, and the two of them broke apart, springing to their feet. Soft thoughts scattered and fled before the panicked thundering of their hearts as they stood side by side, eyes narrowed and bodies taut, two wild animals prepared for the fight of their life.

"Did I miss anything?" Irineé asked as she rounded the corner.

* * *

There were entire galaxies within Jean-Luc's mind, and he moved between them with long, slow steps. It occurred to him suddenly that he was traveling light-years with a single movement, and he wasn't sure if this was his mind or someone else's or the universe itself. He slipped sideways, spun off from the axis of a thought with a tilt, and careened off into the stars. 

And then there were arms around him, soft and sweet, words like a symphony whispered in his ear.

"Is it safe?" he whispered, eyes wide with wonder and filled with a billion, unfathomable pinpricks of light.

_As long as I am with you_, the voice answered.

He took another step and stars coiled around him, strung together like Christmas lights on a silken cord, milky clouds tangled in their weave.

_Come, Jean-Luc, let me show you true power._

And then everything changed.

* * *

"What's she doing?" Madelyne asked with a frown. 

The Shadow King smiled and reached out, caressing her cheek and savoring the shadowed line of jealousy that curled in deep around her lower lip, lurking there like a serpent beneath rose petals. "Showing him the secrets of his power."

The serpent beneath her lips coiled as if struck, and the smooth skin between her eyebrows twitched once, flexing with an expression of covetousness. Reptilian and brilliant green, her eyes settled on him. "You know I could do it better."

He laughed and ran a hand over her brilliant copper-colored hair. "All in good time, my dear. All in good time."

* * *

"Jean-Luc…" Irineé whispered. Her eyes fluttered up toward the ceiling, pupils contracting with fear, a shudder rippling throughout the length of her slender body. "I can feel him…" 

"We have to go," Remy said, grasping Rogue's shoulder.

Irineé didn't move, just stood, trembling like a rabbit transfixed by the beams of oncoming headlights.

"Irineé." Rogue pulled from Remy's grasp, grabbed the younger girl by her shoulders, jolting her roughly. "Irineé!" The girl's eyes rolled up in her head, showing only the pure whites for an instant, then lolled back down, settling on her mother with a dazed lack of focus.

"Mom? They're…. searching for us." She rolled bonelessly back and forth between Rogue's clutching hands, caught as if by the rhythm of a snake charmer.

"Ah know, shugah," Rogue answered, her voice level, though Remy could still hear the panic in it. "Ah need you to cloak us, okay? Hide us from their scans."

"He's… so strong," Irineé whispered, and shuddered again, her head falling forward. Strands of white hair, still damp from Storm's rain, fell forward into her face and clung to her cheek like frightened children. From where he stood, Remy could only see one of her eyes, and it rolled up, white showing like a spooked horse. "_She's_ with him."

"Shut it out, shugah," Rogue said, voice gentle as she rubbed her daughter's shoulders. "Shut them both out. Ah know you're strong enough."

Irineé's head lolled a moment longer, and she nodded once, gasping for breath. Then she pulled her neck straight, head held high and proud, and Remy thought he might have gasped himself, so impressive was her effort. Eyes the color of young forest leaves focused on a fixed point in the distance, and her jaw clenched, mouth a sharp pink slash against the pale skin of her face as she focused her entire will on the task before her. Her body tensed, trembling not with fear now, but sheer force of will, and she stood back from her mother's grip, feet planted slightly apart, shoulders squared.

"Go back to where you came from, bitch," she uttered, her mouth tightening violently around the final word.

* * *

In the collision of universes, Jean-Luc suddenly felt the arms around him relax; fingers slipping away down the keyboard of his ribs with an almost musical sound. 

_No._

And then he was floating, alone in a void of blackness.

* * *

Phoenix threw back her head with a wail that pierced the mind of every living body within the room. It was the sound of nails down a chalkboard, of a soul torn asunder, of the ultimate agony any sane mind could endure, and it played up and down the spine of every person present, digging in with gleefully sharp fingers, spasming with discordant music across every synapse. 

Jean-Luc hit the ground like a sack of bricks, brain shut down, body convulsing as if in seizure. He flopped like a dead fish as the Phoenix wailed and the Shadow King watched on.

Madelyne looked up through gritted teeth and grinning blood, deep crimson trailing from both her nostrils and trickling from her ears.

She licked her lower lip and looked up to meet her master's eyes. "I told you… I could do it better…"

* * *

Irineé closed her eyes, bowed her head as if gathering her strength, and then nodded once. 

Emerald green eyes snapped open, fixing Rogue and Remy with a gaze more cold than he would have ever believed Irineé _(his daughter)_ capable of.

"They're gone."

"Jean-Luc?" Rogue asked, and her voice trembled just a little.

"Alive," Irineé reported, her voice still toneless. She paused a moment, and then a glimmer of warmth trickled back into her voice as she spoke again. "He's lost inside his own mind. It'll take a long while for them to get him back. Even longer for _her_ to do more than cry every time she tries to use her power," she added with a smirk.

Uncomfortable with the blood lust that curved, slight and sinuous in Irineé's smile, Remy cleared his throat. "Um… cherie, who dis "she" you keep mentionin'?"

"The Phoenix," she said, short and succinct, and he could see the coldness fading from her with rapidity as she slowly returned to herself.

"You… _you_ took out de Phoenix, cherie?" he asked, unable to keep his eyes from widening in disbelief. He didn't know as much as _they_ knew about Jean Grey, for sure, but what he did know was enough to make him stop cold in his mental tracks at the thought of this little girl shutting down a powerhouse like that.

Irineé frowned at him, not quite understanding. "Yeah. I…" she trailed off as she realized the gravity of what he'd just said. "…did," she finished, her voice ending on an up note, almost like a question.

Remy turned to Rogue, saw pale skin and red-rimmed eyes that were almost as terrified as he felt. "Dis Shadow King, chere. How we defeat 'im before?"

Rogue wrapped her arms around her still damp body, shivering beneath the second skin of her green and white uniform. Somehow, Remy guessed she wasn't just shivering from the cold.

"We didn't," she answered with a look at Irineé.

"_We_ did," Irineé said with sudden realization. She met Remy's eyes, and he saw the same fear he'd felt reflected in their depths. "Me and Jean-Luc."

Silence reigned for a moment, and Remy felt the slow, annoying burn of common sense returning.

"We have to go back and get him," Irinee began, her voice rising in pitch, excited and hopeful as she almost pleaded. "With the two of us—"

"No," Rogue interrupted, her voice a short, inarguable reprimand. Irinee deflated like a burst balloon, and Remy struggled to follow the logic, his mind stringing pieces of fractured memory together with this new information.

"We can't go back," Rogue said, more quiet now as she softened, placing a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Much as Ah wish we could." Her face contorted with conflict, but Remy watched as she willed it away, features smoothing over like sculpted marble. He didn't know who she was—not really—but he sensed somehow that she'd been different once; that she'd been just as impetuous and passionate as he still was. He could still see that fire crackling just beneath the skin, but it was tempered now, honed, held in check by a discipline he could only begin to guess the source of. What had she been through since he'd died? Before he'd died for that matter? And why did he care?

"Mom…" Irinee pleaded once more, emerald eyes desperate.

"Ah know, shugah. Ah want him back, too." She winced once more, and this time Remy thought she might crack—but she swallowed hard and pulled herself together by sheer force of will alone. "But there's too many of them. An' they'll be comin' for us now, anyway."

Shaken from his train of thought by the prospect, Remy focused on Rogue and blinked once. "Great. So now what?"

"Now," Rogue said, reaching out and clasping his hand in hers, "we run."

* * *

Logan growled low in his throat, body crouched and coiled tight over the unconscious body of the Phoenix, ready to spring at anyone who came too near. His mind was a jumble of nerves and instincts, a cacophony of inner voices that screamed and wailed together in one, single, succinct message. 

_-KILL—_

"You wish to avenge her," the Shadow King said, and laid his hand upon Logan's head.

Logan tilted his head back like a dog and leaned into the hard fingers that played along the base of his skull, relishing the touch of his master's hand. Even so, his eyes flashed fire, and his lips drew back from his teeth, feral canines exposed in warning to any others who might come near.

"Go then. Hunt them. Find them." Long, bony fingers curled in the hair at the back of Logan's neck, pulling backward and exposing his throat rather than caressing. The Shadow King's eyes glowed fierce red as Logan looked up at his master, and he whimpered, a low growl of confusion that reverberated in the back of his throat.

"Bring them to me alive if you can; dead if you cannot."

Logan's eyes strayed to the lithe body crumpled on the floor, and the Shadow King smiled, indulgent.

"I will protect her. Go."

Low to the ground, almost scampering on all fours, Logan went.

* * *

In his wake, Ororo stepped forward, leaning down over the inert body of Jean Grey. 

Dark fingers tangled in shimmering, auburn red, icy blue eyes riveted by the coppery highlights that glistened and flowed in her hand.

"I want her," she said, her voice harsh and petulant, eyes never leaving the fascination of Jean's shining locks.

"For a pet?" the Shadow King asked, the ghost of a smile curving his lips.

Snatching her hand away, Ororo shook her head once, brief and violent. Pulling the stray strands of shimmering red knotted between her fingers as if they were filth she had scraped from her boots, she tossed them aside with disdain.

"To make her suffer. Make her pay." Ororo reached again, this time for Jean's face, fingers crooked into a claw, nails extended.

The Shadow King's hand clenched around her wrist hard enough to fracture the tiny, delicate bones inside. She cried out in pain and lowered her head in supplication, white and silver hair falling forward over her face like a curtain as she cringed.

"Oh, Ororo," he said, pulling her by her wrist to her feet, and she clenched her teeth in agony, willing herself to meet his eyes as she knew she must. He could do worse. _Would_ do worse, if she resisted.

"I always knew you were a woman after my own heart," he said with an insidious smile. "In many ways, you are the worst of us all."

She smiled despite the pain, basking in her master's praise. "May I have her then, master?" she asked, remembering her manners this time.

"No." The Shadow King's smile wavered, changing shape just a bit.

"I have something even better planned for you, my dearest."

* * *

As plans went, running seemed like the best idea Remy had heard so far. And if Rogue, in her leader capacity, happened to agree with him, well… who was he to argue? 

So why wasn't he happy about it?

He kept up with the pace, but he looked back with ever-increasing frequency, overcome with some nagging, ultimately noble purpose he couldn't even begin to fathom. As far as he could tell, he was a sarcastic Mr. Know It All that got on everyone's last nerve and avoided anything serious like it was on fire. He was the "punch line" guy, the smooth, suave, debonair one who never really risked anything important or stayed too long in one place. He should have left the night that Irineé—oh wait, correction, _Jean-Luc_—stopped him.

_You really are a sucker for women in distress, hombre._

_…Or mebbe you jus' care 'bout dese people. Your family._

Was that possible? Was there some part of him that lay dormant beneath the surface, sending out impulses of feeling, inspiring stupid self-sacrificing stunts like the one Rogue had told him about and the ones he was contemplating now?

How the hell had he ended up _here_? And why was he _still_ here?

Maybe he was just stupid.

Dim daylight broke at the end of the tunnel, painting spilling shades of red all along the cave walls, and it was too reminiscent of the recent blood that had been spattered all over the hangar bay.

They slowed as they came up to the exit of the cliff face, desert stretched out before them like a bloody wasteland ready to swallow them with its dry, hollow teeth.

"We made it," Rogue said, pondering the failing daylight.

He nodded, common sense taking a momentary backseat to cynicism—it felt like standard operating procedure, anyway. "An' now what we do, chere? Hail a taxi?"

She fixed him with an ironic sideways glance. "Ya remember taxi's?" she asked, half exasperated, half annoyed.

"Only vaguely," he replied with a wink.

_Dat's it, Remy, keep up de bravado, play along, play dumb and be de funny guy. Den maybe dey won't catch on t' what a noble idiot you actually turnin' out t' be._

And somewhere in the forefront of his mind, taxi cabs danced along in bright, gay yellow, black and white checkered patterns whooshing merrily by. He _did_ remember taxi cabs… and—

_The horses hooves clip-clop along against the pavement, and there's snow—he can smell it, it's so real, the pure, brisk scent tied up in the musk of the equine animals that pull them gently along the streets of __New York__. They're cuddled up together in the carriage (cab, hansom cab) provides, and she's leaning against him, her eyes so green and wide, like heaven and God and everything he's ever dreamed of that he never really believed in. _

_"Dis is how I wanted it t'be since I first looked at you, Roguie. Beyond all de flirtin' an' teasin'-past all de games an' all de uncertainty. I know we can be hurt, girl. Physically as well as emotionally. I know, one kiss from you—one touch , flesh to flesh—might give me some serious hurtin'… but I'm willin' t'take de risk for you…"_

_"You willin' t'do de same for me?"_

His mind blooms into sudden understanding like a fire flower, his thoughts catching like kindling with the feeling of the moment. Then. He'd known then. He'd understood. If he could just hold on to it, keep it, make it part of him forever…

…and then it's gone. Not like his other memories; it's still there, remembered, swirling beneath the surface, fluxing and vibrating with color and scent and feeling—but it's just a memory. It's not time travel, it's not surround sound and Technicolor anymore. He's not there in that carriage (hansom cab) and she's not the young, sad doe-eyed girl he'd been falling deeper in love with by the moment.

Falling deeper in love with her by the moment… He'd been falling in love with her then. How long ago?

And why didn't that memory bring back the feelings he should be feeling? Why didn't it conjure feelings of marriage and children? What happened in between that and…

…and when he'd died?

And why didn't he care anymore?

* * *

Logan loped along the narrow stretch of tunnel, their scent bright and electric blue, hot and vital as it danced along his olfactory senses, metallic taste dripping down the length of his throat. 

They smelled like fear, and blood, and tight knots of intestine coiled up in terror.

They smelled like food.

* * *

He'd loved her. He didn't remember the rest, didn't know anything about anything else, but if he'd loved her, and if everything else she'd said had followed…. 

He should run.

It didn't feel real.

And yet, on some level, it did.

He had to do _something_. No matter what he thought, no matter what felt most comfortable on the surface, he couldn't ignore that deeper voice. It was there for a reason. He'd died for a reason, before.

The question he couldn't figure (one of many), was _why_?

He didn't know. But he couldn't just leave.

Could he?

* * *

Close. He was close now. He could almost taste their blood, their fear. 

_Alive, if you can…_

His master's voice resonated in his head, rattling his skull, shattering his instincts.

Slow. He had to be slow. The animal in him raged to feast on their fear, to tear flesh from bone.

_-HUNT—_

_-KILL—_

_-DESTROY—_

He dug his fingers into the rocky bed of earth beneath, adamantium claws on the verge of popping. So easy. So simple. Metal claws, the rending of skin…

It's what he knows. What he understands.

* * *

"Remy?" Rogue asked, her voice tight and careful, as if she could see the questions running rampant through his mind. And probably she could; after all, his poker face seemed to have lost a lot of its grace since he came back from the dead. 

Memories still teetered on the verge, so close to being revealed. He could feel them there, swimming behind his eyes.He opened his mouth, though he had no idea of what he was about to say—

and everything exploded.

* * *

He came for them with snarling fury, compact frame launching from the entrance of the cave, hair bristled straight up on end, mouth twisted back form his gnashing teeth in a terrible snarl. Saliva dripped from the tips of his canines, and he growled, a thick bubbling of black ire that rose from deep within his chest. 

"Logan!" the girl squealed, and he loved the sound she made, like an animal about to be slaughtered.

He hit her square in the chest, pinning her to the ground. Adamantium claws thrust out, lodging deep in the rocky desert soil. Only four, two on each hand on either side of her arms, holding her still beneath him. The third claw, he would save to skewer her biceps whole if she tried anything stupid.

He cocked his head to the side and grinned at the other two who stood, watching; their bodies reeked with the scent of terror.

* * *

"Yes…" the Shadow King hissed in pleasure. "Bring her to me, Logan. Bring her now."

* * *

"Irineé!" Rogue shouted, terror gripping her like a living thing. "Stop him! Shut him down!"

"Logan…" the girl pleaded, her eyes beseeching him.

And Rogue knew it wouldn't do any good, any more than telling Irineé to shut him down would do any good. She could tell by looking at him that Logan was almost totally controlled by his animal side, and Irineé couldn't grab hold of his quicksilver, feral mind fast enough to shut it down.

Her daughter was their last hope. And the Shadow King knew it.

* * *

Remy had about a thousand thoughts in the span of a few milliseconds, and his head reeled with the intensity of all of them. But only one came through loud and clear. 

_She's my daughter._

The decision was as easy as pulling the playing card from his pocket and aiming it at the fragile space right between Logan's eyes.

* * *

The third claw eased from the sheath of his skin as Gambit tensed, moved. Logan's animal eyes held Remy's, challenged, gloated as the final claw pierced just the casing of flesh, drawing blood and whimpers from the prey beneath. 

"Remy!" Rogue yelled, her voice filled with warning.

_Mexican standoff._

He grit down on his teeth and dropped the hand that held the playing card. He wondered if he'd ever been a praying man before. Somehow he doubted it, but maybe if he started right now…

_Dear God, I know we don' talk much, mostly 'cause I don' believe in you, but if—_

The world exploded with brilliant white light, and Remy LeBeau hit the ground in blind, wide-eyed wonder.

_Now **dat's** what I call service._

_

* * *

_  
Logan whined and drew back as his eyes were assaulted by the light. Vision wasn't his main dependence, but it was the equivalent of being blasted by a supernova in the rapidly descending dark of the desert. Instinct screamed at him to let go of the girl, to back away and get to cover, and he pulled his claws from the ground— 

He wasn't fast enough.

_

* * *

_

Irineé seized the moment, striking out with her mind, and Logan's unconscious body fell like dead weight at her side. She was on her feet in an instant, blinking against the luminescence even as it lessened.

* * *

A tall silhouette strode forward toward them, dust from the desert curling up like gray coils of smoke around its feet. 

"Well, looks like I arrived in time after all," said a rich, feminine voice.

The light cleared.

"Mon Dieu," Remy whispered.


	16. Chapter 15: Needle In a Bruise

_Back in my life  
I used to be so happy.  
Don't ask me why  
I became so ugly.  
Go back in time,  
And try to find the answer,  
But don't hope to find  
What is now out of time,  
All I see is a stranger who died_

Back In My Life, De/Vision

* * *

CHAPTER 15: NEEDLE IN A BRUISE 

Remy scuttled backward through desert sand like a crab.

The woman was a nightmare. A horror. Horns protruded from her head, sloped far out to either side before slanting smoothly backward to where the points almost touched. Half-moon reptilian pupils slit across narrowed fields of yellow as she looked him up and down, and her face was a twisted mask of mocking expression, caught somewhere between human and demon. Only her armored feminine figure and full mouth made clear that she was human at all, and that resemblance ended somewhere around her knees, where they bent backward like the legs of some kind of beast, ending in sharp-toed, cloven hooves.

A forked tongue flickered out at Remy through dagger-sharp teeth and she smiled.

"Gambit." The word hissed out, thick and slurred by her teeth.

"Eh…" He backed up another few feet, no smooth replies presenting themselves.

"Illyana?" Rogue asked.

The demon-woman tilted her head to the side, and her tongue flickered, as if in thought.

"I was called that once," she agreed after a moment. "Most just call me 'Mistress', these days."

"She's on our side, right?" Remy asked, looking to Rogue for confirmation. Rogue just stared at him, seeming at a loss, and when he looked back to the demon woman, she was smiling in a vague, slight way that could have meant she was feeling friendly, or that she wanted to eat him alive.

"She's not on anyone's side," Irineé said from his left. He couldn't see her face, but he could hear the stone in her voice. That didn't bode well. Not at _all_.

Irineé stepped forward and he could see the tension in her lithe body as she squared off against the demon woman—Illyana, Rogue had called her.

"Still haven't forgiven me, then?" Illyana asked, her tone light, her expression sly.

Irineé didn't deign to reply to that, and Remy twisted his head to look up at the younger girl, wondering.

"She's the reason you died." Irineé answered his unasked question without ever taking her eyes from Illyana, and Remy turned his head back toward the demonic woman.

"Dat true?" he asked, feeling rather absurd.

Razor sharp armor shifted back and forth on the woman's shoulders, and she cocked her head to one side. "More or less."

Remy blinked at her. "Oh."

"Karma," she saidas if that explained everythingand sighed, then shook her head. "This wasn't supposed to happen, you know?" she said, speaking as if to herself. "Divergent time streams," she spat with latent anger. "How you people manage to screw up my life and yours so spectacularly, over and over..." she trailed off and turned away, seeming disgusted with whole matter.

"Did you come here for therapy, or can we fight now and get it over with?" Irineé asked.

The forked tongue flickered; once, twice, and Remy braced himself for battle. And then the woman only laughed, turning back to them with a delighted expression that better belonged to a younger girl's face.

"Neither. This is the part where I make it all up to you, little one."

The world began to glow again.

* * *

"Gone," Madelyne whispered, dried blood smudging the lines of her mouth. 

"How can they be gone?" the Shadow King thundered, and the others shivered and moaned all around her. "Gone where?"

Madelyne gave a small, tittering laugh, eyes wide and half unhinged.

"To hell."

* * *

On the flat expanse of ground spread out below them, around the stumps of buildings and the skeletons of skyscrapers, opposing armies surged like water rushing through a riverbank. They swirled with metal and electricity and fury, and screamed their defiance and faith at the sky itself, warriors given to one cause and one cause onlywhich one, only the Gods of this world alone knew. There was a moment of silence, like the calm before the storm, and then sound rushed to fill the expanse as the two met and clashed in a maelstrom of armor and mutant powers. 

"Humans and mutants," Illyana explained, voice soft. "What few of them remain."

Even from here Remy could tell the difference. The mutants flew and ran and wriggled and crawled and the symbol of the Shadow King was stamped across each and every one, woven into spandex and makeshift armor and carved into skin. The humans heaved and cleft with flashing swords, dim sunlight glinting silver stars from their sharpened tips, and from somewhere among the throng of lunging bodies came the clattering sound of gunfire. But mostly, they died, falling to the ground in boneless heaps of flesh that bled out crimson all over the ashen ground.

"Is this our world?" Rogue asked, her voice thin and pale to Remy's ears.

"Perhaps," Illyana answered, enigmatic. "It depends on what you do."

There was another blinding moment of bright white light, then darkness, the suggestion of something darker, shadowyblack forms that giggled and detached themselves from shadow with clawed fingers and grinning mauls—and then they were… somewhere else.

"What was dat place?" Remy asked.

"Home," Illyana said, and Remy shivered.

"And this?" Rogue asked.

Earthen walls closed in, stalactites and stalagmites closing in like massive jaws to devour the space around them.

"This," Illyana said, drifting forward, "is where it all began."

Light illuminated the rocky ridge whereupon lay an inert body clothed in shades of crimson and deep purple. Hands were crossed in perfect peace over the gentle rise and swell of his chest, and his face was lent an almost beautiful radiance by the absence of awareness.

For a moment, Remy wished he could trade places with the man.

"Magneto," Rogue whispered, and immediately Remy denounced his momentary wish.

"This is when the Shadow King took him," Rogue continued, her voice sounding strange, and Remy turned to look at her.

There was something in her expression that made his stomach coil tight and his heart beat faster. Pain, like an icicle wedged between ribs, and though he couldn't have said why, couldn't have said how he knew, he knew in that moment, more than any other he had suspected since his reawakening, that she loved this man, too.

Well… what was he supposed to do with that?

"I can give you this moment," Illyana intoned, voice sullen and flat as it fell against the rock surrounding them. "I can allow you to take it all back. Make it so none of this ever happened. This time stream would wink out of existence… all would be as it should have been…" She trailed off and turned to them, the outline of her face a dark silhouette, white light illuminating only the curved plane of her cheekbone and her eyes… and those eyes… they were tormented. Too sad for a woman whose countenance held court in the home of demons and the Devil, Himself. Too filled with knowing.

"You can make it right again."

The statement was so final, so amazing in its simplicity and complexity, that Rogue took a step backward, emerald eyes flitting to meet Remy's for an instant.

"Ah don't…" She looked away from Remy, down at the ground, and then back to Illyana's shadowed face. "Ah don't understand."

But she did. Remy knew. He could see it all too well, written upon the frowning, confused, lovely lines of her face.

"Of course you do," Illyana contradicted, voice gaining harshness as she turned away, eyes hardening as they locked upon the tragic figure fixed upon the rock before them. "I give you the chance to make it so that this never happened at all. So that things can go back to the way they were meant to be." Illyana ventured another step forward, her eyes still fixed upon the man who lay like a corpse before them.

"You mean you want us to kill him," Rogue said, voice hard, and Illyana went on as if she hadn't even noticed.

"This wasn't supposed to happen you know. In a galaxy far from this one, a robot called Nimrod II will be discovered, his story and goals revealed by the scientists and psychics of that age. Not knowing what to do, they will send it back into space, where it will eventually land on earth, almost a millennia later, to finish the business it began here." Illyana's voice grew darker, more distant. "But it will return to a burnt out husk. To the skin of a world that was once beautiful and great, where only forests grow in the quiet left behind by the human soul."

"Where you found him," Rogue said, the words not a question.

"Yes." Illyana turned again, the reptilian slits of her eyes narrowing upon Rogue in the semi-darkness. "You can stop this. You must."

"Why do you care?" Irineé asked, her voice hard and accusing.

Illyana hesitated a moment, and a myriad of emotions that Remy could not put name to traveled across her face. "Because I must. Because I betrayed you. Because my brother lives in this world. Because my beloved Katya lives here, shaped and trapped into a form I would not have her hold." Her face struggled to hold the breadth of human feeling that she bore beneath the demonic features of her face; love, hatred, contempt and understanding. "Love demands sacrifices, and expects no less than everything."

Rogue took another step backward and folded her arms over her chest, as if to protect herself. "We can't make that kinda decision. How can we?" she implored, her tone almost desperate, as if begging Illyana to take back the choice.

And Remy, for all his recently unearthed feeling for this woman, for all that he remembered and all that he admired and adored in her now, could not help but wonder if she avoided the choice for his sake, or for the sake of the silent man upon the rock… or both. And he couldn't help but wonder if he would love her despite the truth, no matter what it was.

Illyana's voice hardened as she descended upon Rogue. "Because you must. If you do not, the Shadow King will rule all in an empty world. Because this world will die, your children will die, your beloved and everything you hold dear will die, and you will have only yourself to blame for it in the short period of time before you die, yourself."

"It's not that simple!" Rogue snapped, her voice scathing hot as Remy watched that deep fire in her spark and come to life at last. And yet, she had no refrain, and Illyana grinned in the deepening darkness.

"You seek to save him… but you cannot. Magneto will never be the man you imagine him. Not in this universe, or any other. The man you want him to be only existed in this world for a short time, and shall never be again."

"Take us back," Rogue begged. "Just a little ways. Back to before the Shadow King claimed him this time. Or before he attacked us. If we had time… if we only knew…"

"Do you not understand, woman?" Illyana asked, drawing up her demonic form with unabashed pride. "This is not what was meant to be. Magneto wasn't meant to be possessed by the Shadow King. This world is a fragment, and echo of what could be. It is the darkest of pasts and futures, and you would choose this?"

"Rogue…" Remy finally found his voice, swallowing hard against the words that wanted to come. "Mebbe we should consider—"

"No!" she cried, vehement. "Remy…What happens to all of us if we do this? What happens to Irineé, and Jean-Luc?" she asked, her eyes pleading.

"Are they worth the price of blood that has been paid in this world?" Illyana asked.

"They are, to me," Rogue answered, and her voice was truth, and broken glass and fire and ice and everything Remy felt inside his heart of hearts that he could not, dared not, express.

"And you?" Illyana asked, turning on Remy with blazing eyes.

"I…" He met Rogue's eyes for an instant and quickly looked away. "I… don' know."

"Of course you don't," Illyana agreed, almost cooing as she mocked him. "Why, you don't even remember most of your life here, do you?"

"Enough t' know not to make deals with demons," he said, and met her gaze, unflinching.

Her pupils contracted again, thin, crescent moons of velvet black exploding with anger. "Then let me show you what you do not know, Remy LeBeau."

"No!" Rogue cried, leaping—

and then everything vanished in blinding light.

* * *

"So you came back for me? Even after what Ah did to you?" Rogue's voice shook a little with the question. 

Remy saw himself within a chambera bedroom of immodest proportion and posh luxury—as he took a glass from her and set it aside, laying a hand upon her arm and meeting her eyes intently with his own.

And then he was inside himself, inside of memory, inside a dream, on the precipice, on the edge of a moment that would redefine his life forever.

"Yes, chere," he heard himself say, and his voice was soft, Mon Dieu, had he ever been this soft? "I came back for you. I couldn't blame you for leavin' me like dat…I deserved it, I knew I did. But now dat you an outcast from the group too… well, we birds of a feather, no? Difference is, I got an in dat you don't."

"Ah wonder if they'd take me back in now, too… after what Ah did…" she said, her voice distant.

"I'm only dere cause dey need more bodies, chere, not cause dey want me dere. You an' me, we got no home anymore." He pulled her closer to him, drawing her up against him. "But we still got each other, chere… if you want it dat way," he added, his voice growing low and husky.

"Remy…" she whispered, struggling to regain her composure. "Ah'm here 'cause ah got nowhere else to go. You… you got a second chance."

"Ain't no place in dis world for me without you by my side, petite," he whispered back, his lips barely an inch from hers. Looking for something forever gone, drinking it dry, taking this drug, and he didn't care, only knew he wanted her, wanted to be with her, no matter what it meant.

She gazed deep into his eyes for a long moment, thoughts and he could see the confusion, the conflicting thoughts there.

"Chere?" he asked, voice pleading.

And she lifted her lips to his, eyes closing as she gave herself over to the passion in her heart.

He stiffened suddenly, surprised, and she drew back. "It's alright, shugah," she whispered, pulling off her gloves and tracing the outline of his lips with one finger. "I can control it, now."

It was all he needed to hear. He grabbed her in a tight embrace, pulling her almost roughly against him and returning her kiss with a passion of his own, passion too long denied.

The world around them seemed to ignite and catch fire, and they gave themselves over willingly to the flames.

And he remembered this, oh yes. Suddenly, he remembered it ALL. Past merged into present and then into future and… and…

And nothing mattered but the momentary touch of her hand; nothing but the softness of her skin. And he was a man who'd spent a lifetime like a needle in a bruise, a lifetime spent avoiding the news, and he cared so much and he didn't care about anything else, ever, so long as she was here, beautiful and vibrant and naked and alive and touching him, holding him, breathing him and loving him and God, it was more than he'd ever imagined it could be, this joining of flesh and this feeling that was too large to hold inside either of them, and they really weren't aware of the trouble they were in, or the forces that were aligning against them even as they embraced and kissed and loved and discovered each other all over again inside and out. And they didn't know, and they didn't care, oh they didn't care, and Mon Dieu he was going to break, shatter into a thousand tiny meaningless fragments that only called her name and wanted her touch, and there was nothing in the world so much as this and he didn't know how he could have ever forgotten, and he was so thirsty, and God, he wanted to drink her down, slake his firing need, his aching want, and there wasn't enough of her touching him, never enough, and this was the sweetest, the best, the brightest, all the broken pieces of him that ever were all glued back together in just the right way so that he curved like a bright star against her, perfect and whole and the best man he could ever be, all right here in her arms, cradled right here in her arms, loved like a man, held like a child, held up so high, taken to the sky, taken in her arms…

This was everything. How could he have ever forgotten, even for a moment, what she was; what they were together?

Remy's eyes sprang open, and he saw without surprise that only Illyana stood before him now.

"This was the wrong place to bring me," he said, his voice soft and low, words sung like a deadly song.

"Wait and see," was all she said.

* * *

A rushing barrage of imagery as they defeated the Shadow King, years flying by with the deepening of love and devotion, souls on fire and a world in ashes, and still, love between them, higher love, lifting them above it all. A wedding in white, the birth of their children, surprise and awe and amazement just for this life that he lived, for this love that he held, for the simple being of life made flesh outside his body; his flesh, her flesh, all born of what grew between them. 

And then, Sinister came, Illyana came, and everything that was part of him that he loved was threatened to be taken from him, and he had betrayed her, betrayed their love, betrayed her even as she lay unconscious in his arms, his words whispered like a last reverent prayer against her lips.

And then…

He was dying! Every cell in his body flared with a burning agony, turning flesh to smoking cinder. The pain was so excruciating that he could barely think past it, barely speak.

_"ROGUE!"_he called out in agony.

And then she recognized him, knew him, understood exactly what was happening. He felt her awareness return in an instant, like a jolt of electricity, fear coursing through her veins.

_"REMY!"_

She was locked into him now, and he knew she felt the pull of darkness that beckoned to him. He felt as much as saw her watch in horror as his synapses winked out, one by one, like lights being turned off at the close of a business day, the blackness growing and consuming his mind.

_"I got 'im, chere. You all…be safe, now…"_

Tears rose in her eyes, and she grabbed hold of his tenuous thread of thought, struggling to keep it alive, to keep him bound to this plane.

_"REMY! NO!"_

_"Too late, chere…too late for me….save de children.__ Tell…Magnus….he take care of you, now…love you chere…now an' always…."_

His thoughts were like quicksilver more than ever before, and he felt them sliding inexorably through her grip. For a moment, his entire life was laid out before her like a storybook, and he saw her look into the depths of it through tear blurred eyes, seeing herself, seeing their life together as he had seen it. And they were one, finally given the true union of soul in mind that they had only emulated in body. So entwined were their minds that he could no longer separate himself from her, their children from them, and the shared love between them all refused Rogue the option of letting him go.

He couldn't let her hold him. He wanted nothing more than to stay here, than to be in her embrace again, to know the sanctity and grace within her arms. But he couldn't stay, and he couldn't take her with him.

_"Ah love you, Remy…"_

He felt his mind tighten and release, and then he lost all sense of her…

_"Always…" he_ answered echoingly.

His voice faded out, and the final light in his mind went black.

It was over.

Except that it wasn't.

* * *

"You died," Illyana said, studying him intently. 

"Very astute, chere," he replied within the blackness of the nothing that used to be his mind. "You know, wit' a brain like dat, it's a wonder de demon world let you go."

Illyana gave the barest flicker of a smile. "It didn't let me go."

* * *

Green hills and misty mornings, and the saddest woman and two children he had ever seen. Black gloves over white marble stone, and there were roses, and tears, and a voice like an angel. 

"She mourned you," Illyana said as they watched Rogue's figure vanish across the horizon into mist. "She never stopped mourning you." She turned to Remy and looked at him, eyes odd and strange. "Her eyes mourn you still, though they look upon you again."

"Love's a funny t'ing, chere," he said. He turned away, eyes fixed upon the horizon. "Not dat you would know."

Illyana only smiled.

* * *

Years rushed by again, and she was an fragile, aching shell, without him… without love… with only sadness to fill all the empty hours and empty spaces in her heart, and Remy could not stop himself. 

"Dere must be somet'ing we can do."

"This has already all come to pass," Illyana said, and they swept by the sadness like a wake, Remy's fingers clutching empty air as they passed time by.

"Here," Illyana said, suddenly still. "Look. Listen."

* * *

"Rogue?" Magnus asked, his face a cacophony of confusion as the door slid open. "Are you all right?" 

"Fine," she breathed as if in discourse, the words released in relief.

"Do… would you like to come in?" he asked, and his voice was baffled.

She did not answer; instead she slid her arms around his waist and pulled him in.

"Rogue…" he breathed, his voice caught between desire and knowing.

"Seven years, Magnus," she said, her eyes blazing truth, and Remy understood all too well the existence of anger in its wake. "Seven years, and you're alive. Ah've been chained longer than Ah can remember. Ah don't want to be chained anymore," she said, voice desperate, emerald green eyes beseeching his.

He closed his eyes, sighed as he spoke his next words. "I would not ask this of you."

"You don't need to ask," she said, and pressed her mouth to his.

"God, Magnus," she whispered, her syllables warm breath against his lips. "Ah can't believe Ah've waited this long."

He wrapped his arms around her and drew her to him, pulled her into the room, and she curled against him, eager and—

* * *

"Non. No more," Remy whispered, his voice ragged, his eyes shut tight. "I can't see this." 

"But I thought you wanted to know, Remy," Illyana said, her voice smug and sly. "Don't you want to see what happened? All those broken memories…" she touched his head in a parody of caring, and he flinched away, marveling that this creature had ever had an ounce of humanity in her. "Humpty Dumpty… Don't you want to put them all back together again?"

"I was dead for seven years. She had de right to a life," he declared, voice angry and certain, so much more certain than he felt inside.

And still their romance played out before him. He could see her eyes, so bright, so alive, cheeks flushed, lips colored deep pink with passionate kisses and they whispered sweetness, breathing into the curtain of white hair that her fingers stroked—

He averted his eyes from the scene and hated. Hated her. Hated Magnus. Hated himself for being dead, for not being there for the last seven years when she needed him, when she wanted him, for all the nights she cried alone in an empty bed for him. Every broken piece inside him seethed and lunged and burned with the anger of the unfairness of it all, the stupidity of his own gamble that panned out to be nothing after all. He had risked his life, theirs, risked everything and gained them nothing but pain. He could still feel how much it hurt—his dying, her mourning—and he couldn't begin to grasp the magnitude of it all, couldn't begin to find the words.

His fingers curled into fists, nails digging deep into flesh and drawing blood, and still, he refused to make a sound. His life, hers, his children's, all destroyed. Seven years of suffering… All for nothing. He had died, and she had mourned, and finally she had found happiness again… and now here he was; the prodigal hero, come back from the dead to ruin it all.

"You look like you could use a friend," Illyana said, sliding closer to him, insidious. "I can help you." Her breath was a warm, thick whisper against his cheek, and he could hear the coveting in it, the victory in it. "You can make it so that none of this ever happened."

He cut his eyes at her with all the blazing hatred in his heart, and he would have razed her to the ground had he been able. He might be broken, yes; bleeding, dying, crumbling, the wondrous breadth of his world only just discovered to watch it all die in the mere passing of seconds, and he would have given everything he had; his heart, his blood, his love, if only he could have set it all right—

But be damned if he would ever admit it to this woman.

"Take me back."

Illyana blinked in surprise, took an involuntary step backward. "What?"

"Now."

* * *

And as the last temptation of Remy LeBeau played itself out otherwhere, Rogue was left alone to a temptation of her own. 

Irineé was gone, had disappeared when Gambit had, and she didn't know what she was going to do about that, but…

The world... she could save the whole world. She'd seen the end of it all, knew that they could not defeat the Shadow King... and yet she still clung to her stupid, stubborn pride, and this terrible life they all had lived for so long. Remy... their children... she couldn't imagine letting it all go, and yet... how could she not? How could what she loved be enough to condemn the entire world to this horrible fate?

Magnus lay there, still and silent, just another stone set into a backdrop of many.

_Is he… in there?_ She wondered, and reached out, her hand hesitating before quite touching the smooth stone of his face.

"Don't," she said aloud, forcing her hand to fall away. She and Magnus, side by side in silence again, never speaking a word of what they wanted, like the clever dance they'd woven throughout the last seven years. And there were a thousand things she wanted to say, a million more she wished she could do, but none of it was hers to give.

God knew she loved Remy, but somewhere in the wild, open fields of her heart, there was a place set aside, a quiet hearthstone where she sat alone sometimes and her dreams were of a white-haired man who'd been... what, exactly?

Friend, confidante, life-mate; husband and father in every sense of the word except the literal, drawn and bound together as surely as any two soul mates had ever been. Knowing him was like breathing, and they'd had so much time… nothing but time… side by side in silence as they stepped through the years, best friends and team leaders and politicians in arms. But never lovers. Not until it was too late.

She could save him now. Give him peace and passage, give him the life he had deserved and always wanted… everything he had always tried to give her. She could set him free and save the world, and everything would come unspun, like a fairy-tale in reverse… or a nightmare. And Remy wouldn't die, and she would never have had their children because she would never meet Remy again in a war-torn world, or join the Brotherhood, because she would never kill Cyclops, because the Shadow King would never have killed all the telepaths, and the record would play backwards and on and on with its warping tune until Remy's trial never happened and Magnus would sleep underground alone forever in a silent tomb, and she would never have that time with him, never meet him again and know him that way and fall in love, and neither of them would ever know.

"We wouldn't remember anything, Erik…" she whispered, voice echoing with an eerie resonance within the cavern. "We wouldn't know," she said, a tear slipping from her eyes and trailing down her cheek. "And the world would be okay again… and you'd… you'd be at peace. Wouldn't that…" Her voice broke, caught in her throat, and another tear fell to join the first. "Wouldn't that be all right?" she asked, her voice barely audible, even to her own ears.

But just outside of time on the other side of a portal, Remy heard it all the same.

* * *

It didn't touch him at all. 

Not on the outside. The outside was cool, calm, collected, together. Inside, his mind fell apart, shards shattering into even tinier fragments and then sown back together against his will with all the sorrow and knowing that had come to pass.

She was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and she still took his breath away, even now—especially now. _How can it be this?_ He wondered. _How can it be now?_

_"I love you."_

Words turn over like a soft sigh in his memory, kisses given in rain, fingers entwined and promises given. Forever and always, she says, and she binds his wounds and caresses the scars in the shade of memory,

_He regained a bit of control as he heard her stifled laugh, his gaping mouth closing with a snap of finality. "You mean… I'm goin' to be a daddy, chere?"_

pieces falling together rapidly now,

_He reached for her hand and pulled it up just below his chin, eyes not straying from hers as he leaned down to kiss it and slipped something onto one of her fingers. "Rogue… ma cherie… will you make me de happiest man in de world an' marry me?"_

a fusion of sizzle and twist and sear as they merge together,

_"I love you as I have no other, an' as I will never love again…more even, dan I love our children…an' dat's why I'm willing to take dis chance for you, for dem."_

vague and maddening fragments forming mezzotints and mosaics in tiled patterns he can scarcely comprehend and wants to even less,

_"Ah love you, Remy…"_

_"Always…" he__ answered echoingly._

He feels like a picture, all tinted and plastic; not real, but with the patterns of reality painted across his breadth. Indelible, unchangeable reality, held frozen, time in a bottle, a boy in a doorway who only wants her in his arms, only wants her here in his arms…

_"Seven years, Magnus… Ah don't want to be chained anymore."_

not these fractured pixels and jagged ceramic shards of memory that cut as they fall together, breaking him to pieces all over again,

_auburn__ hair fanned out on the bed, Magnus wrapped around her, loving her…_

but it's not that simple anymore, hasn't been simple that in seven years, and it's his fault, his fault, his own stupid, irrevocable folly.

He hated it. He raged inside at it like a growling beast, teeth bared and growling, and it only stared back at him, unmoved. He hated it, and he didn't understand why it had to be this, had to be now… but he knew who he was.

Was that enough?

He didn't know, but as he stepped forward through the portal, Remy LeBeau knew he meant to find out.

* * *

Illyana watched him go and stood outside of time, waiting, wondering. 

They had asked her why, and she had answered, but she hadn't told them everything.

Once upon a time, in another world, there was a little girl with blue eyes and golden hair who had a big brother named Piotr who loved her more than life itself, and she was happy, and human, and glowing, and so miraculously, so completely, alive.

Once upon a time… and maybe once again.

* * *

Broken and bruised, aching around the edges of his piecemeal memories and his wounded heart, Remy entered the cavern. It was calm, quiet, and yet the air tingled around him, moving over his skin as if with the electricity of anticipation. His mind curdled with the fullness of understanding, and the deepest core of everything he was felt shrunken, emaciated, dying by inches… and yet… and yet… there was something deeper; a sense of calm that drove deep into his bones and steadied his soul. There was a fated feeling to this, a finality in this moment, as if everything he had been, everything he was slowly becoming had converged in this very instant, and he stood on a precipice, an abyss stretching away endlessly beneath his feet, offering nothing but open air and bone shattering halts. The world yawned in blackness before him, and nothing was certain, except that nothing would ever be the same again. 

"Sabine." Her name felt strange and somehow right upon his lips, whispered low and filled with confusion as it was.

"Remy!" She rose and turned to him, her face, her oh so beautiful face still streaked with tears.

And then she was in his arms. It felt like home and it felt like tragedy, and his mouth filled with all the bitterness of years.

In how many worlds, how many time streams had this moment come to pass between them? And how could either of them be the one to make such a choice, change the world and the lives of every living being in the universe? And then again… if not them, then who?

"Where did she…" She stopped, drew back a little and looked up at him, her eyes flickering back and forth as she gauged his expression. The momentary happiness of seeing him again faded from her face, and he watched confusion coalesce into worry and slip slowly deep into trepidation.

"What happened?" She asked as if she didn't want to know, but couldn't help herself.

"She showed me, chere." Bloodstained fingers reached out to touch her face, skimming lightly as he caught her eyes and held them. "Everyt'ng."

Her face bloomed with a thousand expressions, flowering and falling over and over again as she took that in.

"Took a lil trip t'rough time," he explained, and fished out a ragged smile for her. "Remy LeBeau: 'Dis is your life', Charles Dickens style."

"Oh, God." One hand rose to cover her mouth, didn't quite make it all the way up, and fell away again. "Remy… Ah…"

"Shh…" He pressed a finger to her lips, and his smile, thin and fragile as it was, warmed for a moment. "No need t' be explainin' not'ing to me, chere."

And it could have been everything, the turning moment between them, kisses and exultations and the pure, simple joy of their true reunion shared. But he knew this music, knew that the path they'd set foot upon didn't end like that. Fairy tale endings and happily-ever-after's weren't for such as them, no matter how much he wanted to believe in them. There was too much that had come between them, too much at stake.

He took a breath. "'Sides, looks like we got bigger t'ings to worry 'bout right now, non?"

"Magnus…" she whispered, and her eyes glanced toward the body that slept like death upon the stone.

And still, even with all the courage he'd found, it took him a moment to find the words, to force them through the numbness of his lips.

"Do you love him?"

And he knew how much this hurtfor him, for her—how it tore at her heart. He knew she loved him, knew she always would, but there'd been someone else in her life, someone who'd been father and husband and lover and everything he couldn't be for the last seven years, and he had to _know_, had to _hear_ it said aloud. Had to make it real, _believe_ it somehow.

He stood silent, face carefully expressionless, breath caught in his chest like thin, bright wire, waiting.

"Ah… don't know… you were gone for so long, and then Ah… we…

"Do you love him?" he asked again, his face still as stone, his heart hardly beating.

"Ah…" she shook her head, eyes afire, and then slow, slow and steady, she turned her face downward away from him, bowing her head as if seeking penance. "Ah… did…"

"Still do?" he asked, almost insisted, feeling pain lance through his heart with the words. But they were truth, and he'd take the truth over a lie any day.

"Yes," she gasped, her voice a sob as she collapsed against his chest. "Ah do… so help me, Remy, Ah do, and Ah can't help it."

He sucked in air, took a deep breath, and took it on the chin, rising up against her with determination.

"Den we save him, non?" he asked, swallowing against the lump in his throat. "We save de world. Give up our lives an' hope for a better roll o' de dice." He tried to make himself sound sure, to tell, not ask, and love grew small within his chest, a tiny, frightened, dying thing that beat back in desperation against the arm that he wrapped about her body, drawing her close to where his heart filled deep with ice. Cracked and broken, barely beating, but enough to fire his blood. Enough to let him remember he was alive.

"Yes." She stilled, and tears streaked her face like tiny diamond rivers as she lifted her eyes to him, so confused and perilously frail as they begged his understanding.

He understood. He understood it all too well. Dead for seven years and you _still_ manage to lose it all againthat's just how it goes, how the dice fall, how the cookie crumbles, and you had to be willing to give it all up because a man you hated went and got himself possessed because when everything fell apart, when it all came down to it, you were an X-Men and that's what you did. You gave it all up to save the world. You did the right thing. And you tried to deal with the fact that your wife loved that man and tried not to think that she might love him enough to sacrifice your children, your lives and the whole entire world for him, because, hell, you had to save the world anyway. You tried not to think about how much you loved her and you tried not to think about how much you loved your children and let it all go with a smile on your face and a song of martyrdom in your heart, because at the end of the day, that was your job.

And no matter how he writhed in pain, no matter how much he wanted and wished it to be otherwise, that was just the way it was. Here, at the end of the world, the end of it all, the least he could do was accept his fate with a little bit of grace and hope that maybe, just maybe, for one single moment in his smoking ruin of a life, he wouldn't screw everything up.

He didn't get a choice; not a real one. And maybe didn't get _her_, either, but maybe, just maybe, this once, he'd get something he'd never had.

Peace of mind.

_How terribly noble of you_, his mind remarked with searing sarcasm.

_Fuck off_, he returned succinctly.

He bowed to kiss Rogue's forehead, allowing himself at least that much of indulgence before setting her free.

"Le's do it, den."


End file.
